Customer Reviews

Brother Men: The Correspondence of Edgar Rice Burroughs and Herbert T. Weston

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Reading the personal correspondence of the great US author Edgar Rice Burroughs, you feel like a voyeur, for his detail is almost astounding and sometimes you are taken back to a day far removed from our crazily sped up world.

His correspondence with his prep school pal Herbert Weston isn't especially shocking, but it's affectionate, like looking into an old yearbook and seeing the silly inscriptions. It sounds to me as though they kept up writing to each other for nearly thirty years just for old times sake. If you were looking, as I was, to get more insight into Burroughs' writing process, you're out of luck; mostly it's him trying to cheer up Weston, whose business goes through rough times, and also, rather charmingly, he tries not to show off too much when the success of the TARZAN and JOHN CARTER novels makes him into a world famous personality--and a whole city, Tarzana, named after his creation. Meanwhile in Nebraska Weston just bumbles along, stumbling across "Ed"'s name constantly whenever he picks up the newspaper or reads a magazine at the barber shop. The most exciting part of the whole book comes when Weston proposes to buy "Ed" a Lincoln in Nebraska and drive it out to Tarzana--this scheme will save Ed about 1,000 in sales tax. I won't give away the spoilers, you'll have to read the book yourself to see what happens.

Outside of the Lincoln caper, the only thing that really lights a fire under Weston's ass is the death of Teddy Roosevelt, a lion among men I suppose. It was like the way some people here in the 21st century cried when Reagan died. Also intriguing is the unfolding account of the ways both men coped with the influenza epidemic of 1918-19, and how they quarrelled and didn't speak for ten years, then started writing again before the 2nd World War. Time speeds on by, doesn't it?

Editor Matt Cohen provides helpful and informative notes; the volume is nicely illustrated with vintage photos of both families. Cohenis the great-grandson of Weston and relates, amusingly, the story that he came home from grad school and told his grandma that he was looking into cases of emotional and homosocial friendship between American men of 100 years ago and out of the blue she said, "Well then, why don't you go up to the attic and pore through Dad's old letters from Edgar Rice Burroughs?" Talk about buried treasure! The Westons had kept these letters in perfect condition, and happily enough when it came to it, young Cohen found that the Burroughs estate was willing to cooperate fully.

I picked up Brother Men not knowing what to expect, but figuring it would be a quick and amusing read. What I found was a window into life as it was passing for Weston and Burroughs, not as it was remembered. This collection of letters spans the birth of two generations, two World Wars, and the trials of profit and loss. The conversation is friendly, comic, insightful, and random! At times I had to remember that the characters were real and that the letters existed. I actually was sad to end the book knowing that in a few years after the last letter this friendship would end. I think the book is great if you are a Burroughs fan, interested in history, or just enjoy how human relationships evolve. I highly suggest reading the introduction BEFORE and AFTER reading the letters.