Lunchtime read: Seymour: an Introduction

After an odd an uneasy start the penny finally drops and you start to understand that this is a book that the author is finding very hard to write about a brother that he idolised and the rest of the family looked up to. The weight of trying to come up with a suitable tribute is crushing and you start to see the pain of the exercise:

"I said I'd finish this, but I'm not going to make it after all. Not because I'm not a proper iron man but because to finish it right I'd have to touch on - my God, touch on - the details of his suicide, and I don't expect to be ready to do that, at the rate I'm going, for several more years."

Highlights from the final third of Seymour: an Introduction

* Buddy describes how his brother was his greatest critic but also a friendly voice of encouragement and he prints a memo his brother sent after he had written his first major piece of writing

* Then he stumbles around the area of revealing what his brother looked like and he admits he cannot do that easily and gets frustrated and calls on the reader to be satisfied with the information he has been able to provide

* He tries as best he can to describe the eyes, nose and dress sense but where he manages to get a bit more colour is round his brother’s love of sports but throughout he never manages to describe Seymour as an older man preferring the safety of their youth

A review will follow shortly…