Brother
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4.2 • 54 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
From the bestselling horror author of Within These Walls and The Bird Eater comes a terrifying novel that follows a teenager determined to break from his family’s unconventional—and deeply disturbing—traditions.
Deep in the heart of Appalachia stands a crooked farmhouse miles from any road. The Morrows keep to themselves, and it’s served them well so far. When girls go missing off the side of the highway, the cops don’t knock on their door. Which is a good thing, seeing as to what’s buried in the Morrows’ backyard.
But nineteen-year-old Michael Morrow isn’t like the rest of his family. He doesn’t take pleasure in the screams that echo through the trees. Michael pines for normalcy, and he’s sure that someday he’ll see the world beyond West Virginia. When he meets Alice, a pretty girl working at a record shop in the small nearby town of Dahlia, he’s immediately smitten. For a moment, he nearly forgets about the monster he’s become. But his brother, Rebel, is all too eager to remind Michael of his place…
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Ahlborn (Within These Walls) paints a grim portrait of a murderous family circa 1980 in this visceral, nihilistic thriller. Nineteen-year-old Michael Morrow lives in rural West Virginia with his parents, Wade and Claudine, and his siblings, Reb and Misty Dawn. Michael wants nothing to do with his family's psychotic hobby of murdering transient young women, but is literally left to pick up the pieces after their gruesome escapades. When Michael meets Alice at a local record store, he's smitten, but also desperate to keep her away from his family's extracurricular activities; unfortunately, psychotic, unpredictable Reb has other ideas. Comparisons to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre are inevitable, but Ahlborn's impressive writing and expert exploration of the psychological effects of systemic abuse elevate what could have been the literary equivalent of a slasher flick, and the twist in the final act is jaw-dropping. This relentlessly grim tale is most definitely not for the squeamish, but it's nearly impossible to put down.
Customer Reviews
Brother
Deeply disturbing material, but well-written. We are plunged into Michael Morrow’s nightmare world and family immediately. It is a killing night at the isolated farmhouse, and a young woman screams for her life to no avail. When she briefly escapes, Michael is called upon to recapture and return her for Momma to finish her off. As we delve further into the family dynamics, we begin to see the interplay of nature and nurture as we learn that Michael was snatched up from his yard at age four to be reared as a member of the Morrow family. He is continually reminded that his birth parents abandoned him, and that the Morrow family rescued him. We see forms of manipulation capable of imprisoning a person without a single lock. Things begin to change, stakes are higher, outcomes wider-ranging, when an ultimate manipulation of Michael is put into play by the older brother whom he fears but also feels bound to obey.