Blood Brothers
Sol Wachtler & David Gould
(Reviewer - Rebecca Brown)
2003 New Millennium Press
ISBN: 1932407014

In the rural American South of the 1950s, two youths make a pact, which is instantly tested the moment one tells his secret.

They are unlikely friends: Luke is moderately rich, articulate, well-groomed & well-liked in high school. His father runs a clothes store & his mother is a housewife. The one thing Luke has never, ever told anyone is that he's Jewish.

TC is a brute at 16: tall, blond, muscular & dirt poor, with a home life his drunk dad works hard at making meaner. TC has become bewitched by the Ku Klux Klan, & at a rally, his every dream is offered, & his every prejudice inflamed. When Will Morgan, a Kleagle or recruiter, invites TC into the Klan his demeanor transforms from the downtrodden dolt the school bullies pick on, to a tall-walking young man with a purpose.

In the heat of the summer, the two boys bicycle to a lake, talk about life & swear to be friends forever, & to that end they cut their fingers & blend their blood. Afterwards, each tells their biggest secret that they've told no one else, ever. Luke's so appalls TC he attacks his best friend, & Luke must flee for his life.

That is the last time they'll see each other, for within days Luke's family packs up & drives back to Brooklyn, New York where his father's family lives: back into the waiting arms of jeering Uncle Abe who is only too eager to humiliate Luke's father for failing in Georgia & who will, by methodically seducing Luke with his money, suck the young man into his web of manipulation, just as he's done to all his family members. Luke ends up going to college, on Uncle Abe's dime, & graduating as a corporate lawyer. He garners the first rung on the ladder to partnership & dedicates himself to the good life as he climbs to the top.

TC, on the other hand, wholeheartedly embraces the Klan, & with the conniving & urging of Will Morgan, torches a synagogue, winding up in jail for a spell. When he gets out Mayor Will Morgan has an offer he cannot refuse: job security, for life.

Fast forward 40 years. Luke is having a midlife crisis. He decides to take on a pro bono project: he's learnt that TC has been accused of the heinous crime of burning to death one Aaron Boddie in the swamps, a Black man, 40 years ago. Luke, now nostalgic for his seemingly perfect childhood, arrives to defend his erstwhile best friend, who he knows couldn't possibly have done this dreadful deed.

Blood Brothers is a fascinating look into the practise of law for the latter half of the 20th century: corporate & criminal, Northern & Southern.

Blood Brothers is also a gripping reminiscence of the power of evil & good, & how intertwined they are. Luke, the liberal optimist, has a streak of naivete a mile wide. TC, the impoverished pessimist, has all the charm of a 'gator & has discovered he can make people believe him.

Blood Brothers is also a study in race relations: how they once were, & how they still are, underneath all the modern PCness. & the bigotry of Blacks & Whites; Jews & Christians; the wealthy & the poor; the powerful & the powerless.

Sol Wachtler & David Gould (both men of the law) take us into the minds of two very different men: one for whom life is a gift & pleasure, for the other it is so filled with grievances that his hatred runneth over ... until he sees the light.

Spellbinding from page one, & the twist toward the end will glue you to your chair!
(02/13/05)

Rebecca