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

“Perplexing” was the family euphemism for Brenner’s older brother Carl; the less tactful thought him “unknowable,” “charm-free” or plain “weird.” At 13, in San Antonio, Tex., where his father owned a discount store, Carl joined the John Birch Society. At 40, he left his career as a trial lawyer to become an apple farmer in Washington’s Cascade Mountains. Brenner (House of Dreams ) and he were on barely civil terms, but when he was 55, he was diagnosed with adenocarcinoma, glandular cancer, and asked Marie for help. She responded, leaving her family in New York to be with Carl, who rejected conventional treatment, and to follow him as far away as China for “scorpion patches,” herbs and red meat for “yang deficit.” The cancer spread quickly; meanwhile, Marie sought to investigate her family’s present and past among her father’s feuding siblings, including writer Anita Brenner (who became part of Mexico City’s art scene that included Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo). And with this research, Brenner courageously and affectingly plumbs the depths of often complex family and sibling relationships. (May 20)