MY BROTHER TOM

by James Aldridge ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 14, 1967

Small town Australia in the '30's with World War II brooding half a world away has the ring of a cranky, confined small town in our Midwest during the same period. Mr. Aldridge manages to make the Antipodean setting vivid and a major element of this story of late adolescence, masculine pride and family loyalty. Tom Quayle's older brother, now a middle-aged father, recalls his younger brother during 1937-38, when seventeen-year-old Tom fell in love with Peggy MacGibbon, the daughter of the man their volatile father planned to prosecute for insurance fraud. The Quayles' sire was eccentric, immigrant English and Anglican. The MacGibboris were pugnaciously native Australian, Catholic and their father was a rascal. Tom discovered radical politics at just the point he fell in love with Peggy and she with him. The love story is a blameless, lyric encounter, totally bound in this story of the social barricades, the religious pressures and tribal loyalties involved in Quayle vs. MacGibbon at a special time, a special place. Very Well done.

Pub Date: June 14, 1967

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1967

Categories: FICTION