Anyone who has ever experienced an awkward family get-together knows how it feels—a lapse in conversation here or there, a wayward comment or those aggravating remarks from some pretentious cousin often permeate the day.
In the case of the Pommeroy family (an aging, dysfunctional group deeply disillusioned about their own lives) the tensions of an uncomfortable get-together are compounded as they struggle to maintain normalcy amidst an atmosphere of disaster.
In “Goodbye, My Brother,” a 1951 classic short story by John Cheever, these complex relationships are tested as the Pommeroys return for a nostalgic weekend at their vacation home at Laud’s Head in Massachusetts.
Their house, a recently built mansion designed to have a historic, crumbling appearance, sits nerve-wrackingly on the edge of a cliff and overlooks the sea. The narrator, who remains unnamed throughout the story, describes his family as very close in spirit. Yet, they appear to be more or less estranged from one another.
The narrator and his three siblings all live in separate cities with separate families and jobs and rarely see each other. Their one remaining connection is the vacation home, a place in which they all share an equity and where they stubbornly reconvene every few years.
This retreat to Laud’s Head is a family tradition, and even as the four Pommeroy offspring approach middle age, the memories of days at the beach or hikes along ocean-view paths as children seem as real and relevant as their current lives. In fact, memories of the past can be found everywhere in Laud’s Head; from the childhood competition the narrator feels when playing games with his brother Chaddy to the family activities that have remained unchanged for decades.
When the narrator and his wife decide to attend a dance at the local country club with the theme “Come as You Wish You Were,” the narrator finds it comical rather than sad when everybody comes dressed as figments of their past, as either brides or football players.
The one character who doesn’t bow down to this fervent attachment to youth is Lawrence, the narrator’s youngest brother. Lawrence is the polar opposite to his older brother’s happy-go-lucky, deluded approach to life.
While the rest of the Pommeroys spend their days drinking and avoiding their problems, Lawrence lashes out inflammatory comments and calls out his siblings and mother on their delusions. As a result, he is labeled the black sheep of the family, the scapegoat and cause of anxiety in an otherwise serene and peaceful vacation.
Yet, the vacation is not as idyllic as the narrator paints it to be. His siblings are estranged, his mother is bordering alcoholism, and their father who died years ago in a sailing accident is buried in the same sea the house is quite literally about to collapse into.
When Lawrence presents his brother with these hard truths, the narrator, terrified of reality and unable to cope, grabs a sea-soaked root from the beach and whacks his brother over the head with practically murderous intentions.
Anyone with a sibling knows the feeling of wanting to smack somebody over the head; the difference is, most people don’t actually do it.
What’s especially interesting, however, is that this isn’t the first time this has happened to the narrator and his brother.
The narrator mentions, in passing, that he once whacked Lawrence over the head when they were children, and Lawrence had immediately gone complaining to their parents, which is exactly how Lawrence reacts as a grown man at the time of the story, stumbling into his family home in tears, shouting about how his brother attacked him on the beach.
In the end, the polar opposite brothers, each symbolizing different perspectives on life, revert to their same childish behaviors.
“Goodbye, My Brother” is a story about brothers, about delusions and about a family that struggles to share the relationships of the past that they can only dream of in the present.
It’s also a story that asks the question: Is it better to be deluded and happy, or self-aware and miserable?
In “Goodbye, My Brother,” Cheever has created a memorable short story that gives insight to the dysfunctional characteristics found in almost any family, and leaves the reader appreciative of even the snarkiest cousin at her own family dinner.
Do you have a favorite book you want Jessica to review? Shoot her an email at korneff@wisc.edu.
