I hated my older brother, Jeff, when I was younger. I honestly believe that if I had a gun on some occasions I would have shot him. I was jealous of him - he was handsome and popular and, I was convinced, my parents’ favourite - and I was also desperate for his attention and approval which I never received.
A lifetime later, this week, as we do every year, we have taken a trip away together. Jeff is now one of the most important people in my life. After my mother died, 30 years ago, we started to become close, and have only carried on getting closer.
I should also mention that I have another brother, Jack, who is 13 years younger than me and who is also very important in my life. But I never hated him. Whereas the turnaround in my affections for Jeff is salutory for anyone who has a difficult relationship with their sibling.
A brother or sister are the longest relationship you will ever have in your life. They are a great boon - and a great threat, since they, more than anyone else you will ever know, have intimate knowledge of your weak spots and insecurities. If they want to hurt you, no one is better placed.
They carry your shared history and you carry theirs. Rivalries of some sort are inevitable, but a sibling relationship goes beyond liking or disliking. They are deeply part of your identity.
I was so compelled by this narrative that I wrote a novel about it, ‘Under The Same Stars’.
The book was a thinly disguised reflection on the relationship between myself and Jeff. The protagonist, Salinger, is a depressive who is seeking to heal some unknown psychic wound. His brother, Carson, lives in New Orleans like Jeff has done for the last 30 years. One year, after being estranged for a long time, they decide to take a road trip across Texas together - as Jeff and I did, sometime in the early 2000s.
Of course the resemblance between real life and fiction only goes so far. Carson, unlike Jeff, is a born again Christian. They take the road trip in search of their father, who also lives in America, whereas my father never went further then the Welsh borders. And the father is a kind of monster, whereas mine was not.
And yet I used the books to examine themes of sibling rivalry which remained close to my heart. What do brothers understand of one another? How do they sublimate their natural rivalries? What are their different versions of family history?
Perhaps it was in this book that I delved into family history more than any of my other novels, and it was a salutory lesson in ‘writing from life’. Because I struggled terribly with the novel. After three full drafts and eighteen months of writing, I thought it was dead in the water. I had found it terribly difficult to let go of ‘the facts’ and turn it into fiction. The temptations was to write a form of fictionalised memoir.
It didn’t work. But the further I got from the source material, the better the book became. In the end, in draft five and six, it came alive, and now I think it is one of my best works of fiction. However, I learned that writing to close to the factual reality of life and history is stultifying. The themes can be creatively explored, but to try and do so too closely to the actualy lived narrative kills the book.
To be fair, I portrayed my ‘brother’ as a bit of a dick in the book - although Salinger, my own avatar, wasn’t much better. But my real brother didn’t mind at all - although I suspect that even if he did he would never in a million years reveal the fact to me. The idea that I had that kind of power over him would be anathema, so amiable indifference tends to his customary stance.
Such struggles continue to this day. Without going into details, the dynamics of our relationship went through another iteration only an hour before I wrote this. But now we are skilled in handling such potentially breaches in the fabric of our relationship. Perhaps writing the book helped me to understand that.
Anyway, the conclusion I have reached about my older sibling is simple. I am glad that I didn’t shoot him. He gets on my nerves sometimes, and I definitely get on his. But so what? Our closeness and intimacy is greater than it has ever been and I am hugely grateful that he exists - albeit at a distance, most of the time, of several thousand miles.
This weekend we are going to see our Aunty, who is 100 years old. Like her we share a past, and the people we can share a past so distant with is getting smaller and smaller every year. Someone who was once a burden and a vexation to me is now one of the most precious people in my life.
So if you ever feel like murdering your sibling - and I am sure that there are more than a few of you out there - take my advice and don’t do it. Perhaps people stay broadly the same, but relationships do change, and often for the better. Hang in there, because your siblings are you, however much you want to deny it, or at least a much larger part of you than you may want to admit.
Loved that book. I can clarify that you were way better looking than Jeff. Cover notes say you're driving east across Texas to NM........should be west. If you were going east you'd end up visiting me in north central Florida. 🤎