{"id":1181,"date":"2013-10-14T16:22:28","date_gmt":"2013-10-14T21:22:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/?p=1181"},"modified":"2013-10-11T16:25:37","modified_gmt":"2013-10-11T21:25:37","slug":"my-brother-and-his-brother","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/my-brother-and-his-brother\/","title":{"rendered":"My Brother and His Brother"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"cover<\/a><\/p>\n

Hakan Lindquist. My Brother and His Brother. \u00a0Bruno Gmunder Verlag, 2011. PB. 169p. $14.95. 978-3867870856.<\/a><\/p>\n

Jonas is searching for his brother, Paul, who was hit by a train and died seventeen months before Jonas was born. Paul’s photo on top of the television has always prompted Jonas’s interest. He kept asking his parents questions about Paul such such as why he was on the railroad tracks and why he didn’t hear the train coming. After he finds Paul’s suede jacket in the attic with a note in the pocket addressed to “Princi,” Jonas’s quest begins in earnest.<\/p>\n

Finding Paul’s treasure box behind the baseboard of their room, Jonas uses a number of sources–his parents, his mother’s gay friend Daniel, Paul’s diaries, photographs, and old newspapers–to fill in the words of a crossword puzzle. An important piece of the puzzle is that Paul was gay and in love with a Czech boy named Petr. As Jonas finds out more about Paul, he discovers more about himself, as well as about the other main characters and their ways of dealing with guilt and grief.<\/p>\n

Jonas\u2019s easy acceptance that his brother was gay, his comfort at being around Daniel, and his reaction to other events suggests that he may be gay himself. The author leaves us to guess.<\/p>\n

As narrator, Jonas\u00a0uses first person, dreams, talking to Paul, and diary entries.\u00a0In his journey to solve the puzzle, he\u00a0also\u00a0composes a third-person narrative of how their last day together. The final clue eludes him until almost the end.<\/p>\n

The title has a double meaning. The book is about both Jonas, Paul\u2019s biological brother, and about Petr, Paul\u2019s soul brother.<\/p>\n

I recommend this excellent short novel to all readers.<\/p>\n

Reviewer:\u00a0Larry Roman<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hakan Lindquist. My Brother and His Brother. \u00a0Bruno Gmunder Verlag, 2011. PB. 169p. $14.95. 978-3867870856. Jonas is searching for his brother, Paul, who was hit by a train and died seventeen months before Jonas was born. Paul’s photo on top of the television has always prompted Jonas’s interest. He kept asking his parents questions about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1164,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[27,18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1181"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1164"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1181\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}