Phoenix: A Brother's Life [Paperback]

J.D. Dolan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 13, 2001

A beautifully rendered portrait of family and loss, of childhood and manhood by a supremely gifted writer evaluating the sum of his experiences and emerging with a moving work of the highest level.

J. D. Dolan was vacationing in Paris when he received a telephone call telling him to fly home immediately. A horrible accident had put his big brother John in a Phoenix burn unit with third degree burns over 90 percent of his body. As a child in 1960s Los Angeles, J. D. shared with John the unspoken bond that exists only between brothers. But as time passed and their excursions together ended, so did their conversation. For reasons known to John alone, they existed with each other only in silence, and now, in what would be their final days together, there would be precious few opportunities to talk. Phoenix is J. D. Dolan's personal reflections on the agonizing weeks spent coming to terms with his brother's fate, and his attempt to bring their relationship into perspective.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Keeping a vigil at the bedside of his older brother, John, burned over 90 percent of his body in a generating-plant explosion, J.D. Dolan reflects on their troubled relationship and the tensions that seethed within their family. In the author's sensitive portrait, the Dolans seem a fairly typical post-World War II Los Angeles clan: Dad and John bond wordlessly while working on cars; eldest child Joanne struggles for independence; younger siblings Janice and June fight for precedence; Mom sublimates conflicts through relentless homemaking; J.D., the baby, hero-worships his big brother. Yet the author makes each Dolan a distinct and intriguing individual in a narrative penetrated by metaphor and replete with telling details: "my father saved stuff he might someday need, and my mother saved stuff she might someday want"; "'Good morning,' Janice would say, as if issuing a challenge." When John was injured, the brothers hadn't spoken in five years, continuing a family tradition of punishment through silence. There is no tearful deathbed reconciliation, nor do the emotional differences among the surviving Dolans evaporate in the Phoenix hospital where John lies dying. But this beautiful book resonates with the author's compassion and tenderness for his kin, and most especially with his ability to reclaim the love he and his brother once felt for each other. --Wendy Smith --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Dolan's brutally honest, enthralling memoir about his dysfunctional family and the loss of his brother transforms a personal tragedy into a moving meditation on how family relationships shift over time, and how the death of a loved one can become a defining moment in one's life. Growing up in Los Angeles in the 1960s with three feuding sisters, a taciturn older brother whom Dolan worshipped and parents who seemed more interested in their Masonic Lodge activities than in their kids, the author endured a family life of betrayals and punishing silences that lasted for years. By his own account, Dolan in his 20s was a pot-smoking, LSD-popping road manager for rock bands and "famous pop relic" Cher, but gradually straightened out and became a writer whose stories and articles have appeared in Esquire and the Nation. In 1985, when his brother, John, suffered severe burns in a power-plant explosion and lay dying in a Phoenix, Ariz., hospital, Dolan rushed back from Paris, even though John had refused to speak to him for the previous five years. We never fully learn why brooding John was "pissed off at the world," though the reasons seem to lie in his constant need to prove his manhood, his bitter divorce and the emotional armor-plating that was a legacy of his upbringing. Dolan's razor-sharp prose cuts on impact, while his narrative throbs with regret, guilt and unspoken love. This exceptional debut marks Dolan as a writer to watch. Agent, Amanda Urban, ICM. (Mar.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; Reprint edition (March 13, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375703179
• ISBN-13: 978-0375703171
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,341,874 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A SPARE MEMOIR OF INCANDESCENT BEAUTY, December 22, 2000

By 

Gail Cooke (TX, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Phoenix: A Brother's Life (Hardcover)

J. D. or Jay Dolan has given us a rare gift - a spare memoir of such incandescent beauty and truth that it brings forth nods of affirmation. It is a story of love lost and reclaimed, a reminder of the sure knowledge that is sometimes kept locked within a human heart, and the saga of a family shattered by silence.

An unpretentious, astute writer, Dolan is forthright in revealing his own rugged emotional terrain, as well as his days of womanizing and drug abuse.

He is equally candid in describing flawed familial relationships, yet there is always a note of grace. ...The beauty of Mr. Dolan's book lies not so much in the recounting of a life, although his narrative skills are considerable, but in the redemption found and the love rediscovered. In his hands there is triumph amidst grief and hope derived from sorrow.

Phoenix is an extraordinary debut by one who is already master of his craft.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Phoenix rising from the flames, January 6, 2001

By 

Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Phoenix: A Brother's Life (Hardcover)

Deceptively simple in manner and topic, this little tome - a memoir about the vagaries of familial love and reflections on the disappointments of the expectations of youth - holds more food for thought than many a treatise on contemporary philosophy. How much of this book is reportage and how much is embellished fiction is realy not an issue: the detailed description of a nouveau California transplant family in all its dysfuntional state recalls tales of immigrants, bits of Steinbeck, and chards of Camus, Wolfe, and other writers of the human condition. Yes, this is a painful tale of the loss of a brother to the burn injuries from an industrial accident. Yes, the coming to grips with death from the various vantages of family members, coworkers, doctors, etc is a line of penetrating thought. But this book is about so much more than these tales. "Phoenix: A Brother's Life" forces us to accept that we are too often a race of beings that fails to communicate, has lost the spirit of Family, has too little time for the work Love requires. And if ever we needed a wakeup call for embracing these losses it is surely now. Though the title defines the place where all of this finds its Golgotha - Phoenix, Arizona is the location of the hospital housing the Burn Unit that becomes the final destination for the slowly but inevitably dying brother - I think that by the end of this book the author subtly shares that this gruesome experience is akin to the mythological bird that rises from the flames to new life and discovery. Bravo, J.D. Dolan. And thank you from those readers wise enough to embrace this book.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderfully compelling and heartbreaking memoir., April 5, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Phoenix: A Brother's Life (Hardcover)

This is, by far, one of the best memoirs I've read in years--a brutally honest exploration of family dysfunction coupled with the heartbreakingly tragic death of a big brother. Phoenix is a gripping, absorbing, and illuminating read. It's a book you'll read and re-read for years.