I knew it the very next morning, and I still know it now: My brother hates me. He has removed me from his mind, stricken away any thought, any memory about me. I am dead to him. The scary part is, that being dead will not stand in the way of him killing me, if ever he lays eyes on me again.
It is an odd feeling. Have you ever faced it? Being dead to someone you envy, someone you miss, too. Someone who knows you intimately and, even worse, has the chutzpa to occupy your thoughts day in, day out. It grinds down on your nerves, doesn’t it?
Trust me, being dead to your brother is not all that it is cracked up to be, but it does set you free—oh, don’t act so surprised! It frees you from any lingering sense of obligation. Brother, you say to yourself. What does it mean, Brother? Nothing more than a pang, a dull pang in your heart.
You have betrayed him. Accept his hate.
You need not talk to him ever again. For the rest of your life, you are free! A stranger—that is what you are. A stranger, visited from time to time by dreams: Dreams about the mother you will never see again, and the father you left behind, on his deathbed. Dreams of waiting, waiting so eagerly for the next day, to meet your brother at the end of an endless exile. Dreams of grappling with him all night long, until the crack of dawn. Until your ankles give way. Until you lose your footing on the ground.
Then, rising up to take you is the darkness of the earth, which is where you wake up at sunrise to find yourself alone.
In this plot of mistaken identity, Becky instructs her son to cheat his elderly father Isaac, who is lying on his deathbed. Will Jacob pretend to be that which he is not? Is he ready for the last moment he is going to have with his father?
This is a modern twist on a very old story of greed, love, and regrets. It is so much more than a morality tale. Do you find sibling rivalry in adults intriguing? Are you troubled by the notion that the sins of the fathers will be visited upon the children? If so, you will find this story utterly captivating
★★★★★ "A lively psychological study of family and of greed and longing for paternal love and more. It works spectacularly well."
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