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BROTHER WILL by Celia Larner

BROTHER WILL

By

Pub Date: June 30th, 1976
Publisher: St. Martin's

This memoir spanning 40 years or so is a better book than Summer's Lease (1974) and written in the neat, prim, legible hand of Will's brother Simon. Simon, the underprivileged one, not only disinherited but also not as well endowed with the potentials of worldly success. Simon who also lost the young woman, Angela, to Will even if she remained availably beddable not only to Simon (the actual father of one of her two sons) but others. The record goes on in an attempt to discredit Will, an intent which is subverted when Will not only dies very well (the cancer he's concealed) but also leaves his version of siblingship giving Simon the upper hand. As in the earlier book, Miss Lamer seems to enjoy rather curiously disdainful characters who occasion little more than a faint lift of the eyebrows--often the deliberation of tone poaches on didacticism. It works both for and against the book, making it all the more convincing and less affecting.