Surprised by the inclusion of this story by Joseph Epstein, surprised by its publication in The Hudson Review. It’s too stable a story, too interesting, very much character-based and a reflection of life and family. In other words, a good old fashioned story. Starting at the end, it does give enough information in the first paragraph to intrigue and pull the reader in to find out the background. Here’s the opening:
Never let it be said that my kid brother Eli failed to give me anything: he gave me five ex-sisters-in-law and seven (I think I have the number right) nephews and nieces, three of whom I met for the first time at his funeral.
We’re given a lot of information here, most of it lying beneath the words. By the tone, we sense resentment. By the statement of wives, etcetera, we know this is not a close brotherly relationship. What we see about Eli–and we must remember that this is the narrator’s (Lou’s) perception of his brother–does not immediately endear him to us. Yet we’re willing to hold off judgment preceisely because we can see the bias in the narrator.
Epstein then gives us some background on Lou and his brother Eli and sister Arlene. It is a typical story of hard working parents who have little time to show their love to each other or their children, instead doing the best they can to make do for them. The narrator is successful in a used auto parts company, his sister does all right, an angel who refuses to believe anything bad about anyone, and Eli, the youngest, gains outstanding success as an author.
Epstein follows the progress of Eli’s success, his many wives, his awards, etc., bringing him into the action and interaction with his brother usually only when Eli needs money or is receiving some literary prize. Brotherly love is strained by Eli’s rudeness, his weird ways, bad luck with money (and women), and especially by his tendency to use family members and friends in unflattering characterizations in his novels. This particularly irks his brother Lou obviously because he appears to hint that it wasn’t really creative work, just writing down history with a sarcastic and mean attitude.
As we read towards the end of Eli’s life and back to the beginning which opened at his funeral, we have the opportunity to see Eli, old and starting to go senile, and we wonder if Epstein’s narrator chose to degrade his brother by revealing this last stage of his life, just prior to his suicide.
It is a well written story with many of the episodes that reveal character depth and intentions that is so unfortunately missing in so much of contemporary fiction.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology