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Apples and Oranges: My Brother and Me, Lost and Found

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Apples and Oranges: My Brother and Me, Lost and Found

By: Marie Brenner  

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A TOP TEN FAVORITE BOOK OF THE YEAR--MICHIKO KAKUTANI, THE NEW YORK TIMES

A ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH BEST MEMOIR OF THE YEAR

INCLUDES AN AUTHOR INTERVIEW WITH LESLEY STAHL

Marie Brenner's extraordinary memoir of sibling rivalry asks a universal question: How can two people from the same family turn out so entirely different? Brenner's brother, Carl, lives in the apple country of Washington State, cultivating his orchards, polishing his guns, and attending church, while Marie, a world-class journalist and bestselling author, leads a sophisticated life among the "New York libs" whom he loathes. His life far from their secular Jewish childhood in Texas was as mysterious to her as their tangled past. In this affecting family saga, Brenner investigates their contentious history and discovers how inspiring it can be to turn a brother into an ally. Honest, funny, and true, Apples and Oranges is a moving story of sibling rivalry and redemption.

Marie Brenner is writer-at-large for Vanity Fair. Her exposé of the tobacco industry, "The Man Who Knew Too Much," was the basis for the 1999 movie The Insider, which was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture. She is also the author of Great Dames: What I learned from Older Women and the bestselling House of Dreams: The Bingham Family of Louisville.

A New York Times Favorite Book of the Year

A St. Louis Post-Dispatch Best Memoir of the Year

Marie Brenner's extraordinary memoir of sibling rivalry asks a universal question: How can two people from the same family turn out so entirely different? Brenner's brother, Carl, lives in the apple country of Washington State, cultivating his orchards, polishing his guns, and attending church, while Marie, a world-class journalist and bestselling author, leads a sophisticated life among the "New York libs" whom he loathes. His life far from their secular Jewish childhood in Texas was as mysterious to her as their tangled past. In this affecting family saga, Brenner investigates their contentious history and discovers how inspiring it can be to turn a brother into an ally. Honest, funny, and true, Apples and Oranges is a moving story of sibling rivalry and redemption.

"Dying of cancer, terrified of becoming an invalid and reluctant to give up his strenuous life, Carl Brenner—a former trial lawyer turned apple grower—prepared to take his own life in early 2003. He returned home to Texas, took his computer hard drive to a garbage dump on the other side of San Antonio, and filled his car with every piece of paper that might tell anyone anything about his life. He invited friends and cousins over to cart away his possessions—his guns, his fishing tackle, his books and prints. And for good measure, he spent several hours erasing all of his last appointments from his calendar. 'He is possessed by his mission—to erase every trace,' his sister, Marie Brenner, writes in this extraordinary memoir. 'He will see to it that there is almost nothing left to draw upon. No files of flirtatious letters from ex-girlfriends or diaries or e-mails that have the slightest degree of intimacy. He will, he decides, simply try to vanish without a trace.' Thanks to his sister’s new book, Apples & Oranges, Carl Brenner did not succeed in vanishing without a trace. Rather, his life, with all its startling twists and turns, and his singular, sometimes maddening personality are magically conjured for us in these pages, as Ms. Brenner uses the prism of her love and grief for her brother—and her bewilderment too—to create a haunting portrait of him and their family. She has written a book that captures the nervous, emotionally strangled relationship she shared with him for the better part of their lives, a book that explores the difficult algebra of familial love and the possibility of its renewal in the face of impending loss . . . In the process of recounting the story of her relationship with her brother, Ms. Brenner also gives us a wonderfully vivid picture of her uncommon family: her grandfather Isidor, who made and lost and made five fortunes in Mexico and Texas; her father, Milton, who always sounded 'very Texas, boastful and confident as if he’d been born in a uniform'; her mother, Thelma, who as an organizer of San Antonio Mothers for Peace made plans to confront Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara in his hotel room ('If I look chic, maybe he’ll let us in'); and her Aunt Anita, who posed for the photographer Edward Weston, interviewed Trotsky and hung out in Mexico with Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo and José Clemente Orozco. Ms. Brenner tracks the leitmotifs that run through their lives, the patterns—of sibling estrangements, of fresh starts and do-overs—that have stamped their family tree, and in doing so she has given us a beautifully observed and deeply affecting memoir, a book written with the unsparing eye of a journalist and the aching heart of a sister who learned in March of 2003 that her ailing brother had killed himself. In a note to her, he asked her to forgive him for taking his life. 'Please turn off the air-conditioning,' he added. 'I send you my love, now and forever. Carl.'"—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

"If Marie Brenner and her brother, Carl, can learn to love each other, there might be hope for our divided America after all. She’s a hot-shot writer at large for Vanity Fair, an investigative journalist known for taking down corporations; her exposé of the tobacco industry became the 1999 movie The Insider. He is an apple farmer in Washington State with the N.R.A. sticker on his truck who complains about his sister’s 'A.C.L.U. friends in New York.' Illness turns out to be this family’s cure. Carl is discovered to have cancer, and Marie flies to apple country to try to save him. In less capable hands, a memoir of such reconciliation might become a tired on-the-road travelogue or, worse, a bedside tear-jerker. But in Apples and Oranges, Marie Brenner has delivered a majestic little book. She deepens a tragicomic story into a meditation on family and fate . . . In Brenner’s sympathetic portrait, Carl becomes a nuanced conservative character. 'Sometimes you do not get to understand everything,' she concludes. Family trumps politics, and Marie comes to accept her brother’s tough love. One day, brother and sister climb 'through the Galas, up through the Bartletts, the valley stretched out before us. We’re standing in a row of saplings, just planted in this sandy loam soil that he has named after our father. The Milton bloc. "This is where I want my ashes scattered," he says. "Are you listening to me?"' Marie was listening closer than Carl ever imagined. His ashes are scattered throughout this mystical book."—James Panero, The New York Times Book Review

"In this elegiac memoir, the author, a reporter, applies the same investigative skills that led to her exposé of the tobacco industry and Enron to a more intimate subject: her contentious relationship with her late brother . . . At once comic and tinged with regret."—The New Yorker
 
"Deftly traces three generations of a combustible, fascinating family."—The Miami Herald

"This is a book about a brother and sister who didn't like each other much. Can't blame them; neither is very likable. But the book? In Apples & Oranges: My Brother and Me, Lost and Found, Marie Brenner puts heavy demands on her readers but rewards them in the end . . . There is a story, a sad one, that provides food for thought for anyone who has ever struggled to get along with someone close to them—sibling, parent or friend . . . She presents Carl—successful trial lawyer until, at the age of 40, he decides to start growing fruit in Washington state—as a know-it-all always demonstrating superior knowledge, an obsessive neat freak endlessly organizing records, railing against the 'irresponsible profession of yellow journalism' and trying to control the outcome of everything. She was three years younger than Carl, and things weren't right between them from the moment he welcomed his baby sister home by pushing her out a window. She listened to Joan Baez albums; he joined the John Birch Society and smashed her records. In their mother's last moments, she was just around the corner, but he—and the rest of the family—neglected to notify her and had already sent the body to the funeral home before she showed up. She carries her animosity toward him into adulthood, but add terminal illness to the mix and things can change—which is what happens in Apples & Oranges and ultimately pulls the story together and gives the book its depth. And as for controlling the outcome of everything? The choices for Carl are limited, all leading to the same tragic ending."—John B. Saul, The Seattle Times

"Brothers and sisters can be so confounding. How can people who share the same parents turn out so darn different and often be mired in such conflict? That question is at the heart of Marie Brenner's masterly new memoir, Apples & Oranges: My Brother and Me, Lost and Found. Brenner, a writer at large for Vanity Fair magazine, has crafted a courageous and wrenching examination of sibling differences, as well as an important meditation on the limitations of journalism. There is much pain and poignancy here, but also hopeful truths . . . Apples & Oranges is a hard-won testament to the power of love and forgiveness in families. Yet the greatest strength of Marie Brenner's profound memoir is how it asks the toughest of questions b...



Publisher: Picador

Release Date: 2009-04-28

Customer Review: 3 out of 5
Through sickness, opposite-ends-of-the-spectrum siblings come together. - Throughout their lives, author Marie Brenner, a NYC journalist, and her attorney turned Wenatchee Valley orchardist brother's entirely different personalities, political and social views have put them at odds. They are able to come together (at least a little bit); however, after his diagnosis with terminal cancer, as they spend time together at his orchard and team up in search of medical treatment to prolong his life. Although the memoir's subtitle "My Brother and Me, Lost and Found," points to a story about siblings, Ms. Brenner spends a lot of time talking about a paternal aunt who rubbed elbows with famous artists (and whose pear shaped nude backside photo ended up in a museum), complaining about the fact that her family members chose not to inform her (staying minutes away from the hospital) immediately of her mother's death, and providing a plethora of examples of what she perceives as bad behavior on her brother's part, specifically, things like: his unsavory political views, womanizing, and late in life search for spirituality. As an opponent of excessive whining, I wouldn't have even finished reading the memoir except for the many references to familiar landmarks in the Wenatchee area (located in North Central Washington) because of my connection to it (I lived amidst orchards and attended high school in Cashmere). But eventually, even her talk of the area and its people started to stick in my craw - persons poorly dressed, the lengthy boring drive from SeaTac over "the" Blewett Pass (my advice - try taking Stevens Pass next time), the dislikeable quiet, and the too-considerate people (p 191) "I am not good with quaint." Trust me, after a while, hearing the negatives about a place near and dear to ones heart badmouthed gets old. Ultimately, I finished the book, but only to learn what happened to her brother. My advice, skip this book in favor of a better one (like The Mother Garden by Robin Romm, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers, or The Good Rain by Timothy Egan) and travel the Cascade Loop one day so you can judge its merits yourself.

Customer Review: 4 out of 5
Siblings Can Relate - Even though your siblings may not have the mental issues presented here, if you have any brothers or sisters, you will probably still be able to relate to the complicated relationship told about in this book and might even help you appreciate the sibling(s) you have. Very interesting reading.

Customer Review: 1 out of 5
Boring Waste of Time - Fragmented, hard to follow; boring non-essential pages....I gave up about half-way through....I didn't care what happened to either the author or her brother.

Customer Review: 4 out of 5
Not Your Typical Memoir - It started when Cain slew his brother Abel. Ever since these Biblical brothers duked it out, siblings throughout the ages have been at war with each other. Of course, not every sibling relationship is one of rivalry. There are countless siblings who are hand-in-glove simpatico. Apples and Oranges: My Brother and Me, Lost and Found by Marie Brenner, however, is not a symbiotic sibling love letter, but rather a détente treaty.

"Apples and oranges" is how their mother described them. On the surface, this assessment seems apt. Carl was a green tea sipping, gun-toting, right-wing, Texan apple farmer. Marie, in comparison, is a Starbucks quaffing, New Yorker who writes for Vanity Fair and other elite publications. As she states, "Our relationship is like a tangled fishing line. We are defined by each other and against each other, a red state and a blue state, yin and yang." For decades this was the state of their relationship: deep love buried underneath a surface of anger, misunderstandings, and harsh words. However, when Carl is diagnosed with terminal cancer Marie rushes to his side to try and save him and their relationship.

Apples and Oranges is clearly written through Marie's prism. This partly inevitable as she is the author and partly due to Carl's meticulous eradication of his notes and letters. At certain points in the memoir I questioned Marie's assessment of her brother. For example, when Carl sought "`a hard-working individual'" to manage his apple farm, Marie characterized "the ad [as having] . . . the social skills of a blowtorch." Some readers, however, might simply describe Carl's ad as plain-spoken. Still Marie does not spare herself in this memoir and is candid about her own shortcomings.

The memoir is strongest when the relationship between Carl and Marie is front and center. The parallel story of the Brenner family history, while notable and worthy of its own tome, was often distracting. Similarly, the passages concerning the history of apples in America did not move the primary story forward, except to demonstrate Marie's devotion to finding a common ground with her brother.

When the spotlight shines on Marie and Carl's relationship, Apples and Oranges is a compelling read. Few memoirs are as authentic as the passage below:

I love you more than anyone . . . . You are my brother. We are Brenners. Team Carl.
There is no epiphany. There are no final words.
Don't leave me, he says. Tears run down his cheeks. I am sorry for everything.

Apples and Oranges is a lot like real life: messy, complicated, and worth savoring every second.

Customer Review: 3 out of 5
A family full of bad apples - Whoa! And you thought YOU had problems with your siblings. Marie Brenner's memoir is a story of her halting attempts to connect with a difficult brother -- and to reconcile herself with the legacy of her fractious family -- after he asks for her help when he is diagnosed with cancer.

My first time through the book, I skipped over many of the stories she tells. My initial reaction was that in a family such as this that actively courts dissention through their words and actions, the rifts that run deep and wide are not surprising, so not all that interesting. It's clear, too, that Marie's brother Carl has some sort of obsessive and/or social disorder that seems never to have been addressed.

I was also put off by Marie's narrative voice. She is the epitome of the urban sophisticate; a journalist, a "know-it-all" as her brother says, a New Yorker. She seems to relish her own obstructionism. She encourages her brother to write, then tells him "God, that is awful." She belittles his attempts at spirituality, mocks his conversion to Chrisitanity, his halting prayers. Can't she even let a dying man come to grips with his own soul?

After I got all that out of my system, though, I went back and read the book more slowly. The stories she tells are breathtaking in their cruelty, particularly the account of her mother's death, when her brother refuses to call Marie to say she is dying, even though she lives five minutes away. "You should have been here!" he admonishes. Marie makes a mad, impassioned dash through the city to the funeral home to say goodbye to her mother.

I found her attempts to resurrect her family history less interesting, even with an infamous aunt who ran with the likes of Frida Kahlo and a grandfather who fancied himself a don and left his wife in favor of his young secretary. And though I grew up in New York State apple country, her many digressions into apple growing made my eyes glaze over. (I would like to taste the Honeycrisps Carl was cultivating, though.)

This highly personal memoir of a family filled with colorful characters may be too much to take all at once. You may not like Marie or Carl or Isador or Anita, but this is the kind of unvarnished, brutally honest story you aren't likely to encounter often. Slow down and savor this book with the kind of care Carl lavished on his apple orchards.

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