Brothers is a thriller novel by William Goldman. It is the sequel to his 1974 novel Marathon Man and is Goldman's final novel.
Daniel Woodrell wrote in The Washington Post that "The ultimate significance of the title becomes clear only in the surprising, explosive twist at the end."[1] The BBC later aired a radio adaptation.[2]
It had mixed reviews, with Goldman himself rating it unfavorably.[3]
Plot
In the sequel, Henry David "Hank" Levy (nicknamed "Doc" and "Scylla"), brother of Marathon Man's protagonist Thomas Babington "Tom" Levy (a.k.a. "Babe"), survives his stabbing. The plot concerns an effort to instigate World War III by means of simultaneous, worldwide terrorist attacks, which Scylla attempts to stop.[4] Scylla's job is to kill American scientists who made three inventions meant to give the United States a military advantage against the Soviet Union.[5] There are two factions in the U.S. government, the Bloodies, advocating war, and Godists, who wish for more peaceful methods.[6]
Scylla initially convalesces on an island, as he had been in recovery for a decade. He later goes to New York State, both New York City and Upstate New York.[4] At Princeton University he kills "Arky" Vaughan, who made the suicide chemical, while in New York he kills Milo Standish, who created a chemical that makes other people do his wishes.
After "Ma" Perkins, the spy who helped him recover, is murdered, Scylla goes to London. Scylla initially only knows of two inventions, but learns about the third after Ma's death.[7] Scylla kills the Blonde, Perkins's killer, and Division head Beverage dies from suicide after Scylla confronts him.
The final invention is exploding children made to kill important politicians and scientists to goad major world powers into attacking each other so the United Kingdom, left standing, could rule the world. Beverage had already sent exploding children, but they largely detonate prematurely and the mutual retaliation fails to materialize. Babe's wife, Melissa, has been hired by a facility in England ostensibly to fine-tune speech of amusement park props - in reality, the exploding children. Scylla, not knowing her identity, kills her. When Babe and Scylla meet, they embrace and cry.[8]
Background
Goldman later recalled, "I'd written one sequel before, which was Father's Day, and I had this notion that Doc wasn't dead and I thought, 'Shit, I'll bring him back and see what happens.'[9]
Goldman stopped writing novels after the publication of Brothers:
It was one of those funny things. It just ended. It came as a shock to me. I don't know what happened. My wife left me the next year and that certainly was a change... When I was a novelist - those thirty years - something comes along and hits you and you think, 'Oh my God, that might be interesting,' but I haven't had an idea for that for twenty years now. If I started writing a novel tomorrow it wouldn't shock me because, as we all know, it's all instinctive.[10]
Goldman wrote 16 published novels in the 30 years from 1957 though 1986. Though he lived another 32 years after Brothers appeared, he never wrote another novel.
Reception
Woodrell described it as "a fast-paced, mayhem-filled, occasionally funny, frequently clever novel."[1] Lochte called it "Sneaky, diabolic, a bit depraved, disturbing, maddening, heartbreaking, manipulative and fascinating."[4] Kirkus Reviews stated that "Goldman's slick delivery[...]provides fairly painless reading" but that Brothers did not have "the memorable punch of Marathon Man."[7] Lehmann-Haupt wrote that the author "bewilders us as to his ultimate aims, and seeks to keep us entertained in the meantime with gimmicks" but that it does not "[puzzle the reader] constructively."[6] The West Coast Review of Books ranked it three of five stars (a "good" review) and stated that it was "a bona fide page-turner."[11]
Dobyns said Brothers "is hardly a novel at all but a comic book without pictures, something along the lines of Masters of the Universe. Even the characters have similar names... [it] isn't a novel at all but a book about killing."[5] Publishers Weekly also gave a negative review, stating that it was not a good sequel and "the book's basic premise fails to hold together."[12] Murray wrote that it was mostly "disjointed and agonizingly slow" even though the author used "wit, much of it directed at his own wildly imaginative ploys."[13]
Goldman himself later called it "a not-very-terrific book."[3]
