Phoenix: A Brother's Life - Softcover

Dolan, J.D.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0375703179 ISBN 13: 9780375703171

Publisher: Vintage, 2001

Synopsis

A beautifully rendered portrait of family and loss, of childhood and manhood by a supremely gifted writer evaluating the sum of his experiences and emerging with a moving work of the highest level.

J. D. Dolan was vacationing in Paris when he received a telephone call telling him to fly home immediately. A horrible accident had put his big brother John in a Phoenix burn unit with third degree burns over 90 percent of his body. As a child in 1960s Los Angeles, J. D. shared with John the unspoken bond that exists only between brothers. But as time passed and their excursions together ended, so did their conversation. For reasons known to John alone, they existed with each other only in silence, and now, in what would be their final days together, there would be precious few opportunities to talk. Phoenix is J. D. Dolan's personal reflections on the agonizing weeks spent coming to terms with his brother's fate, and his attempt to bring their relationship into perspective.

About this title

Review:

Keeping a vigil at the bedside of his older brother, John, burned over 90 percent of his body in a generating-plant explosion, J.D. Dolan reflects on their troubled relationship and the tensions that seethed within their family. In the author's sensitive portrait, the Dolans seem a fairly typical post-World War II Los Angeles clan: Dad and John bond wordlessly while working on cars; eldest child Joanne struggles for independence; younger siblings Janice and June fight for precedence; Mom sublimates conflicts through relentless homemaking; J.D., the baby, hero-worships his big brother. Yet the author makes each Dolan a distinct and intriguing individual in a narrative penetrated by metaphor and replete with telling details: "my father saved stuff he might someday need, and my mother saved stuff she might someday want"; "'Good morning,' Janice would say, as if issuing a challenge." When John was injured, the brothers hadn't spoken in five years, continuing a family tradition of punishment through silence. There is no tearful deathbed reconciliation, nor do the emotional differences among the surviving Dolans evaporate in the Phoenix hospital where John lies dying. But this beautiful book resonates with the author's compassion and tenderness for his kin, and most especially with his ability to reclaim the love he and his brother once felt for each other. --Wendy Smith

From the Publisher:

"Dolan's brutally honest, enthralling memoir about his dysfunctional family and the loss of his brother transforms a personal tragedy into a moving meditation on how family relationships shift over time, and how the death of a loved one can become a defining moment in one's life....Dolan's razor-sharp prose cuts on impact, while his narrative throbs with regret, guilt and unspoken love. This exceptional debut marks Dolan as a writer to watch."
-- Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"A beautifully written, painfully frank memoir about a death in the family, and a meditation on the fragile bonds of kinship in the modern world...Dolan unflinchingly peels away the layers from a family's secrets and fears, and in doing so creates a memorial to a brother lost too soon -- as well as a powerful, unsettling lament for the ways in which life's hard realities can diminish ones dreams."
-- Kirkus Reviews

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0375703179
• ISBN 13: 9780375703171
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 208