I like to browse at book stores. I let my eyes wander the shelves and latch onto whatever book’s spine happens to come into focus. If the title grabs me, I’ll grab the book off the shelf and read the summary on the back. If that grabs me, I’ll take the chance of reading a new author. I’m rarely disappointed.
Initially, I put Brother back.
The cover of the book and the description of the Morrows, the main characters family, led me to believe that the book was going to be a Texas Chainsaw Massacre style story. That’s not really my jam, so I put the book back and continued to browse.
But the story premise had hooked into my brain and I picked it up again. Because, while siblings are often a trope in horror, it’s usually sisters or boy/girl siblings. I can’t think of another story that explores the sibling relationship between brothers. It’s been something I’ve wanted to write about, being a younger brother myself, so I pushed myself out of my comfort zone.
Michael would like to think that he’s not a part of his family’s murderous activities, that it’s his Momma, his father, Wade, and his brother, Rebel, that are the monsters. But that illusion is quickly dispelled when Michael is called to run down a girl who has escaped from the farmhouse in the Appalachian wilderness. He wants to be able to perform the role he’s called to for the family, to be able to disassociate so he no longer feels remorse for his participation. He’s a monster with feelings.
But still a monster.
Rereading the first chapter after finishing the book, there’s a lot of foreshadowing that I didn’t realize was foreshadowing at the time. Michael’s relationship with his adoptive family and his role in their murderous activities, Momma’s motivation to kill, Wade’s favoritism that contributes to Rebel’s plan for revenge. There’s a lot there, which would make the story a good one to reread, to see what the signs were along the way.
The pacing of the story is phenomenal. Ahlborn builds suspicions in the reader, investing us in the story so that the reveals are satisfying. However, the final twist transforms this from a simple Murderous Hillbilly Family story into one of cat and mouse. I didn’t see it coming, but it brought the story full circle and made the tragedy of Michael’s life complete.
Michael is the main character and we stay with him for almost the entirety of the present day (in the 70s) part of the story. But flashbacks explore the Morrows’ story from Rebel’s perspective. Chapter 3, the first flashback chapter, kind of threw me because it’s in a completely different font than the present day chapters. This felt unnecessary and distracting. Eventually, I got used to the font shift but it still felt unnecessary. However, the flashbacks told from Rebel’s perspective fleshed out the story and was a great example of why I think that novels need to be told from more than one perspective to get the most out of its story.
My wife kept asking me if I was enjoying the story. That’s the wrong word to use. I was engaged by the story. It was grim and hard to read, but I wanted to continue reading to find out what happened. I hoped for redemption. I hoped for catharsis. I won’t spoil it by saying we got either one, but I can say that the story does a great job of exploring how a person’s values can lead to terrible choices.
