Brother and Sister

A resonant family memoir--a slim but weighty book. Keaton focuses on her complex relationship with her younger brother, whose escalating instability--vividly described--affected Keaton, her parents, and her two sisters. The author, who became the 'family documentarian' after her mother's death, utilizes family letters and journals to enhance the narrative . . . Keaton talks about the complexities of loving a brother she never quite knew; of watching him become consumed by alcohol and then 'falling into the process of dying'; and of wishing she had done more to help him . . . A haunting meditation on mortality, sibling love, mental illness, and regret. --Publishers Weekly Poignant . . an addition to Keaton's two previous works of memoir [in which] she strives to understand her troubled younger brother, Randy Hall. She recalls the pair at 5 and 3, sharing a bedroom; in the second part of the book she depicts the siblings sitting quietly, as Keaton holds her ailing brother's hand. In between these moments of intimacy, Keaton admits to long periods of estrangement from Randy, who 'took failure and wore it the way Hester Prynne wore her scarlet letter, ' spending an isolated life writing, collaging, drinking, and existing by grace of the support--financial and otherwise--of his parents and sisters . . . Keaton thoughtfully wrestles with her conscience while attempting to assemble a clearer picture of her brother's nature. She sheds her whimsical persona to explore difficult burdens, which those with an unstable sibling will recognize. --Kirkus