Happy days, those. “Holly was a hit with the fellas and girls and never worried about having a date. A serious heart-breaker. I lived through her vicariously,” our Holly remembers. She thinks of fun nights at Theta formals and mixers and the arrival of Nashvillian Mac Hardcastle from Davidson, bringing his “special sauce of mirth and cheer.” She fondly remembers cheering on the Blue Devils with Holly and other Cameron Crazies. (Oh well, no one is perfect.)
I’m about halfway through the book, and here’s what I can tell you: The Half Brother is a terrific read, a novel to lose yourself in while the characters find themselves. When we meet Southerner and protagonist Charlie Bankhead, he teaches at a New England boarding school and is in love with a student. She’s in love with him, too. They act honorably, and years later she returns as a teacher. Complications ensue for both Charlie and his golden boy half brother, Nicky, who is now on the faculty as well. While I hope for the best, I fear for them all. Not all broken hearts mend well – and, no offense to Kelly Clarkson, what doesn’t kill you doesn’t always make you stronger.
[t]hat my other suspicions had been true: that there did exist people who had grandmamas and granddaddies and great-granddaddies who lived down the street, whose names were on road signs or buildings or both; who had cousins; who had a great web of people spread wide and sticky over Atlanta; and they did the things they did and had the jobs they had because all that great web had figured out the best way to live and showed them how. These people were supremely, effortlessly legible to themselves, and I waited, in vain, for the effect to spread to me.
Perhaps the most important thing Charlie learns from his stepfather is the last thing you would expect:
Near the end of our lunch that day, he’d said to me, Charlie, you need to know something.” His face had suddenly sagged, as though he’d been holding his breath through the entire meal and was finally letting it go. “I have known exactly who I was, who I am, my entire life.” He waved vaguely around at the dining room, the black waiters in their white coats, the city outside that was his. The wave nearly threw him off balance. “And it hasn’t done me a damn bit of good.” His right hand made a fist, and then, driven more by gravity than passion, came down heavily, muffled on the thick tablecloth. His silverware rattled faintly. “Remember that, Charles Garrett. Son of no one. Count your blessings.”
In the half of the book I’ve read, Charlie has come a long way towards understanding who he was, who he is, and who he wants to be. I fear that he has miles to go before he sleeps.
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For Emily Choate’s excellent (and more thorough) review of The Half Brother, please stop in at Chapter16.org.
Oh my goodness, Jennifer–I don’t know where to start! Thank you so much for posting this. So generous of you…and as for Holly’s recollections of Duke, believe me, she has never lacked for pure charisma, and I remember following HER around.
And oh my Lord, that is a *huge* cup I’m holding…I am bringing wine to Parnassus Monday night, but please note the cups will be adult-sized, i.e. much, much smaller!