Brother & sister enter the forest : a novel

Title:

Author:

Mirabella, Richard, author.

Personal Author:

Mirabella, Richard, author.

ISBN:

9781646221172

Edition:

First Catapult edition.

Physical Description:

278 pages ; 22 cm

Abstract:

Willa grudgingly takes in her brother, Justin, who is spiraling out of control, unable to manage his sobriety and the ongoing effects of a brain injury suffered when he fled a terrifying act of violence committed by his first boyfriend.

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Genre:

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Summary

Finalist for the Lambda Literary Awards
A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice

Opening like a fairy tale and ending like a nightmare, this cannonball of a queer coming-of-age novel follows a young man's relationship with a violent older boyfriend-and how he and his sister survive a terrible crime

After years of severed communication, Justin appears on his sister's doorstep needing a place to stay. The home he's made for himself has collapsed, as has everything else in his life. When they were children, Willa played the role of her brother's protector, but now, afraid of the chaos he might bring, she's reluctant to let him in.

Willa lives a carefully ordered life working as a nurse and making ornate dioramas in her spare time. As Justin tries to connect with the people she's closest to-her landlord, her boyfriend, their mother-she begins to feel exposed. Willa and Justin's relationship has always been strained yet loving, frustrating and close. But it hits a new breaking point when Justin spirals out of control, unable to manage his sobriety and the sustained effects of a brain injury.

Years earlier, in high school, desperate to escape his home life and his disapproving, troubled mother, Justin falls into the hands of his first lover, a slightly older boy living on his own who offers Justin some semblance of intimacy and refuge. When Justin's boyfriend commits a terrifying act of violence, the two flee on a doomed road trip, a journey that will damage Justin and change his and his family's lives forever.

Weaving together these two timelines, Brother & Sister Enter the Forest unravels the thread of a young man's trauma and the love waiting for him on the other side.

Reviews (1)

Kirkus Review

Past and present collide as the reunion of an estranged brother and sister prompts a bumpy journey toward reconciliation. Willa and her older brother, Justin, never had the harmonious relationship she desired. Throughout their childhood, Willa's attempts to keep Justin out of trouble fell short; the closer she tried to get, the more quickly her brother ran toward danger. Now in her early 30s, Willa has not heard from Justin in years and has managed to create a composed and tidy life as a nurse who crafts detailed dioramas in her free time. Her calm world is troubled, though, when Justin appears on her doorstep in New Paltz, New York, one evening, bedraggled, with a bruised face and a mangled hand. Willa is hesitant to court the chaos he drags wherever he goes, but with the man she's dating present, she feels pressured to invite him in. In the weeks that follow, Justin's attempts to reconnect with Willa verge on intrusive; at one point, he tells Willa's landlady that he incurred his black eye when Willa threw a water jug at him, another of his brash displays for attention. Time shifts back and forth between the present day and Justin's coming-of-age, detailing a relationship between him and Nick, a boy three years his senior. Nick's taste for cruelty escalates the more intimate he and Justin become, trapping Justin in a vicious cycle when Nick brutally assaults a bully who has found out about them. This event creates ruptures in all aspects of Justin's life. The siblings' current-day relationship wavers between love and resentment, with Willa's disappointment in her brother increasing as he finds himself unable to reconcile the past. As profound as the circumstances straining their relationship may be, Mirabella just touches the surface of interactions that could have been afforded more nuance and subtlety. With more attention paid to actions and events than to the characters' interior lives, the novel loses many opportunities to delve into the characters' interiorities; in turn, some scenes between the siblings feel effortful in their attempts to create tension, as if relying too heavily on melodrama. A queer coming-of-age story about the vicissitudes of love and the redemption to be found in family. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.