My Brother's Name

October 14, 2013
Jane Fields grows up idolizing her brother John, the talented, beautiful older sibling. When John has a psychotic break at college and comes home a deeply troubled young man, Jane is shattered. Her brother stabilizes briefly and then disintegrates again, and the family starts running out of options. John suggests to Jane that the two of them move away from the suburbs to the city, so he can have "time to breathe." But John is too unstable to even drive a car, or hold down a job, and so the siblings decide that Jane will assume John's identityâto "hold his placeâ¦so that one day he get well and become that guy again." The siblings look alike, and Jane (in boy's clothes) starts working at a music store, while the real John roams their apartment "mad and unmedicated" frequently "accusing of treason." Jane soon becomes interlaced with her brother's identity. Krughoff handles John's character skillfully; his madness is never fetishized or overdrawn, even as he becomes more and more sinister, and the boundaries between the siblings become harder to discern. The passages dealing with Jane's parents, as they struggle with the surreal defection of both their children, are drawn with gravity and loveliness. While at times the plot moves a little predictably towards disaster, the book remains a unique and intricately aligned debut.

September 15, 2013
Identity is a slippery slope in this GLBT novel written as a young woman's memoir-like tale of assuming her look-alike, schizophrenic brother's identity. Jane goes far beyond an exterior resemblance as she mirrors John, reaching into deeper, more mysterious realms. In my very first moments of being my brother, I was already getting us mixed up. Even the book design, with its reversed-type running header, emphasizes mirroring. Their shared passion for drums lands Johnny work, and Jane soon experiences this complex sensation: my body felt more like John's than mine . . . how the things done to it might reward or punish my brother instead of me. This becomes problematic when dental technician April comes on to Johnny, and, although Jane's excited and attracted, she must lie to avoid having sex. Inevitably, romantic entanglement and pain result in Krughoff's fast-paced read that's as daring and provocative as it is entertaining.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)