Brothers (PDF)

"The next best thing to not having a brother (as I do
not) is to have Brothers."

--Gay Talese

Here is a tapestry of stories about the complex and unique
relationship that exists between brothers. In this book, some of
our finest authors take an unvarnished look at how brothers admire
and admonish, revere and revile, connect and compete, love and war
with each other. With hearts and minds wide open, and, in some
cases, with laugh-out-loud humor, the writers tackle a topic that
is as old as the Bible and yet has been, heretofore,
overlooked.

Contributors range in age from twenty-four to eighty-four, and
their stories from comic to tragic. Brothers examines and
explores the experiences of love and loyalty and loss, of altruism
and anger, of competition and compassion--the confluence of
things that conspire to form the unique nature of what it is to be
and to have a brother.

"Brother." One of our eternal and quintessential
terms of endearment. Tobias Wolff writes, "The good luck of
having a brother is partly the luck of having stories to
tell." David Kaczynski, brother of "The
Unabomber": "I'll start with the premise that a
brother shows you who you are--and also who you are not.
He's an image of the self, at one remove . . . You are a
'we' with your brother before you are a
'we' with any other." Mikal Gilmore refers to
brotherhood as a "fidelity born of blood."

We've heard that the apple doesn't fall far from the
tree. But where do the apples fall in relation to each other? And
are we, in fact, our brothers' keepers, after all?

These stories address those questions and more, and are, like
the relationships, full of intimacy and pain, joy and rage, burdens
and blessings, humor and humanity.