Blue Genes

July 14, 2008
In a supremely brave effort literally to save his own life, Lukas shatters the silence surrounding the long history of suicide in his Hungarian-German-Jewish family, especially that of his older brother, J. Anthony Lukas (“Tony”). Depression and what is now diagnosed as bipolar disorder hounded various family members, most notably the brothers' beautiful college-educated actress mother, Elizabeth, whose deepening depression, exacerbated no doubt by the sense of guilt and inadequacy in her marriage, led her to cut her own throat in 1941, when the boys were just six and eight. Lukas writes with the reassuring sagacity of hindsight, knowing the negative long-term effects of his mother's mental illness on his brother especially, but at the time her death was mysterious and devastating, and the brothers' relationship grew mutually needy and protective, on the one hand, and fractious and competitive, on the other. Feelings of betrayal, guilt and rage erupted at points during the successful careers for both brothers—Tony as a driven journalist with the New York Times
and author (Common Ground
) who won two Pulitzer prizes; and Christopher (“Kit”), an Emmy Award–winning TV producer, author and actor. For Tony, however, who married late, remained childless and took antidepressants, his illness was debilitating, leading him to suicide in 1997. In clear, forceful prose, the author attempts to make sense of these calamities and assert a life-affirming purpose.

September 15, 2008
Christopher and Tony Lukas's mother committed suicide when they were very young, but the boys were never told how she diedsilence was the family's policy on its legacy of mental illness. Regardless, both brothers achieved great success in their fields (the author is a TV producer and director), and their bond was loving but fraught. Sadly, Tony, who won two Pulitzer Prizes for his journalism, committed suicide in 1997. Those interested in how mental illness afflicts generations and how to find strength and hope in the face of it will find this remarkably honest memoir resonant. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 5/1/08.]Elizabeth Brinkley

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2008
Lukas was6 years old and his brother8 when their mother committed suicide. She was 33 years old and had for years, in the 1930s, suffered mental illness before diagnosis and treatment of manic depressionwere available. Their father, who himself disappeared into a TB sanitarium for a few years, didnt tell the brothers the truth about their mothers death for10 years. Their fragile family, which included an overbearing grandmother, never fully recovered from the suicide and the secret of depression that would eventually claim the lives of other family members. Theirs were lives of estrangement and a host of residual anxieties. Finally coming to grips with his familys history, Lukas wrote Silent Grief (1997), a guide to surviving a loved ones suicide. The irony is that the book did not help his brother, Tony, a PulitzerPrizewinning reporter with the New York Times, who took his own life.A completely absorbing look at a family with a history of depression and one mans struggle to overcome the legacy of suffering and grief.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)