His latest book is a memoir titled MISFITS
AND SUPERMEN: TWO BROTHERS’ JOURNEY ALONG THE SPECTRUM.
Website: www.misfitsandsupermen.com.
As a book bloggin’ and book luvin’ Princess, I’m always
curious to find out how authors got the ideas for their books. Can you tell us what your book is about?
Misfits and Supermen is a memoir about my relationship with my older brother, Melvyn, who was afflicted with multiple psychiatric disorders that kept him institutionalized most of his life.
Can you give us an excerpt?
1 Ardman Drive, circa 1950:
My father, my brother and I are seated at the kitchen table. I am 10 years old; my brother is 18. We all have glasses of tomato juice; Melvyn and I also have milk. My father has a cup of coffee. It’s too early for the daily tension to roll in, so the mood is relatively cordial. My father is reading the paper or cracking one-liners, which make us laugh. My mother is preparing salami and eggs and toast. In the middle of one of my father’s jokes, Melvyn starts to flap his arms, which is one of the ways he shows joy. (I find out in later years that psychiatrists call these actions “stimming,” or self-stimulation. They are most prevalent in people with autistic spectrum disorders.) This activity, coupled with Melvyn’s abnormally thin frame, transforms him into some kind of wild bird, flapping his wings excitedly. No one knows where this sudden behavior comes from but it appears harmless, so no one gets upset. It happens frequently, and if it means that Melvyn is feeling happy about something, it’s all to the good. For my young self, it’s like watching a Daffy Duck cartoon. I laugh when he does it—not with him, but at him. In a sudden flip of his arm, Melvyn’s hand hits his glass of tomato juice, sending the red liquid flying across the table like a storm surge. Everything stops. My father’s paper is soaked, as is the entire table and all of us there. My father looks disgusted, or perhaps just defeated, accepting another inevitable calamity caused by Melvyn. My mother turns around, and her face sinks at the chaos. One more disaster to clean up. She grabs a towel and begins to sop up the mess, which is now seeping onto the floor. While my mother fights a losing battle with the juice, my brother jerks his hand again and hits his glass of milk. The white liquid spreads over the red pool on the table, mixing like watercolors. Melvyn is the first to speak, a kind of triumph for him. “F-first t-t-he milk, t-t-hen the juice,” my brother starts to chant. My father looks at his older son and his face changes, lightens up, chasing away the chaos that has suddenly engulfed his morning. I pick up the phrase, and soon we’re chanting in unison, “First the milk, then the juice!” My mother is not amused. She continues cleaning, using up towel after towel. Breakfast will have to wait. My mother turns off the stovetop and stands still, on the verge of tears. If God would strike her dead at this very moment, it would be a mitzvah (a blessing).
It never occurs to me that Melvyn has the same range of emotions as I do. I laugh at him, but worse, I resent his existence in that rudimentary manner that characterizes youthful solipsism. I view my brother as an alien in the house, someone dark and unfathomable who threatens my unformed and uninformed self. I fight back with anger and insults, which contributes in no small way to the tension that fills our home, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, with precious little relief.
Study the great writers to see how they did what they did; beware of adjective creep and adverb bombardment; write true; pay attention to your inner and outer worlds!
What would you say is one of your interesting writing
quirks?
I don’t know how interesting it is, but I generally cannot continue writing until I have the right lede. I don’t really want to know the ending up front, but the lede is what takes me into the piece.
Do you hear from your readers? What do they say?
Readers occasionally contact me; mostly, it’s positive re the work or the style. Sometimes, I get good, constructive criticism as well.
What is the toughest criticism given to you as an author?
I think it goes back to college English papers, and the implication that bull**** well said is still bull****.
What has been your best accomplishment?
In writing? My current book, Misfits and Supermen.
Do you Google yourself?
Yes, occasionally, mostly to see what’s out there.
How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have?
The usual box-full. I sometimes pick at those to find something I might be able to use for another work.
Fun question – if you were princess or prince,
what’s one thing you would do to make your kingdom a better place?
Princesses and princes really aren’t my thing.
Do you have anything specific that you would like to say to
your readers?
I appreciate you very much. You make us who we are.
The bond of
brotherhood is hard to break, but a lifetime of dealing with familial
expectation, bitterness, and psychological disorders can bend and warp it into
something nearly unrecognizable. This story tells the tale of two brothers:
Melvyn, the elder, whose amalgamation of disorders leave him completely unable
to function within society; and Stephen, the younger, whose own emotional and
psychological issues are overshadowed to the point where he becomes little more
than a pale and twisted reflection of his brother.
On different ends of the same spectrum, Melvyn is blissfully
unaware of their troubling connection (or so his brother can only assume), but
for Stephen, it is undeniable. He lives with it every day, sensing his own
otherness in every twitch, outburst, and inability of his brother to overcome
his inner demons. Left largely on his own to deal with his peculiarities-while
carrying the burden of being "the normal one," of whom much is
expected- Stephen begins a complicated and unpredictable journey, one which
will take him as far from his brother as he can manage to get, even as it
brings them inexorably closer.
A portion of proceeds from this book will go toward the Camp Cuheca Scholarship - Melvyn D. Starger fund at Waterford Country School, Quaker Hill, CT., to help fund a two-week summer residency at the camp. For more information about Waterford Country School, please email development@waterforddcs.org.
A portion of proceeds from this book will go toward the Camp Cuheca Scholarship - Melvyn D. Starger fund at Waterford Country School, Quaker Hill, CT., to help fund a two-week summer residency at the camp. For more information about Waterford Country School, please email development@waterforddcs.org.
“A finely crafted, affecting memoir of
two brothers.”
-- Kirkus
Reviews
“If you want
an honest book about life with mental illness in the family, this is it. Great
writing. Brutally honest. Hard to put it down. Great stories about CT, NY and
CA from the 1940s to 2000.”
--Amazon Reviewer
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