cover image Missing Children

Missing Children

Harry H. Taylor. Louisiana State University Press, $16.95 (142pp) ISBN 978-0-8071-1423-0

Summer after summer, four Brewster brothers return to Cape Cod to stay with their mother, Myra, and youngest brother, Lyle; Myra's husband, ""the captain,'' left shortly after Lyle's birth. She calls her older sons ``the professionals'': Charley teaches in college, Jason is a tax lawyer, Jerry is ``in television'' and Darwin paints. Lyle, who didn't finish high school and who requires medication to control his anxieties, helps take care of the cottages Myra rents in summer. Except for Darwin, who thinks his mother doesn't know he is homosexual, the brothers bring their families,children by various marriages, wives and girl friends. Every summer, tensions rise, precipitated by the ordinary crises of the brothers' lives and by their mother's increasingly insistent demands for ``a pleasant evening.'' Myra's firm will and her ready denial of things she can't control have heavily taxed her emotional reserve, and the unexpected return of ``the captain'' may be too much for her to bear. Yet, his reappearance might offer hope for some of the siblings to confront the emotional deprivation that characterized their childhood and marks their adult lives. While it is sometimes difficult to sort out the older brothers, their families and problems, Taylor (The Divorce Sonnets) has created two disturbing and unforgettable characters in Myra and Lyle. (February 19)