Brothers

David's brother is present in the book, but with the exception of a couple of scenes, he's pretty invisible. Here is an interesting section of an interview with David about his brother:

Do you have any particular hopes for the book?

Something remarkable has happened because of it, already. About two years ago in February, I got a call from my editor. He was very concerned about the latest memoir publishing scandal, where the publisher was frantically shredding 75,000 copies of a book by a woman in L.A. who had claimed she'd grown up in a drug culture; her sister wrote to the newspaper and said she was lying.

Anyway, he quite rightly didn't want that to happen to his publisher, and not on his watch, so he said, "David, tell me, is there anybody still alive who might disagree with your viewpoint of these events?"

I said, "Well, I do have this brother." He said, "Have you shown it to him?" I said, "No. I told him I was doing it because he's in it, but it's not about him." And he said, "You have to show it to him." I said, "Bob, the last time I spoke with my brother, I told him to go fuck himself and that I never wanted to talk to him or hear about him again." And he said, "That's too bad, but you've got to show him the book."

So I emailed my brother and asked him if he would take a look at it. And actually I thought, because his wife had died about two months before, it might be interesting to him, to take his mind off it. I sent him a copy of the ARC.

After four days, I called him up, and I said, "What did you think of the book?" There was a long, dreadful pause on the other end of the phone. And then my brother spoke in his sepulchral, Nixonian tones, and he said, "David, your book blew me away."

I said, "Really?" He said, "Yes. It's like a snapshot of my youth," his voice getting more lively. He said, "I don't know how you did it. It's like you brought everyone back to life. They look the way they looked. Everything's exactly the way it was."

I said, "That's wonderful!" He said, "Do you mind if I show it to my therapist?" And I said, "No! What a great idea. And congratulations, by the way, on being in therapy." Then he wanted to know if he could show it to his sons, and I said, "Yes, that will probably help them understand you better."

Miraculous to say, four months later he was at my house. This is somebody whom I hadn't spoken to in fifty years. He came to our house, and he spent four days...

I'm sorry, how many years did you say?

Well, he's sixty-seven and I'm sixty-four. He might have been ten and I was six when our relationship broke off. We hated each other while we were in the house, and then he moved away, and I never really talked to him again. When we did it was always difficult.

I think what was basically going on — no, I know what was going on: Neither of us wanted anything or anybody in our lives that reminded us of our young lives.

Once this book was there, both of us could see these people again, and see them going through these situations in a way that made us both realize we had nothing to do with the anguish in that family, and there's no reason to feel guilty about it anymore.

I'll tell you, if nothing else happens with this book, it would be worth doing it just for that.