LEE

In this debut memoir, Farmer recalls growing up with an older brother who was diagnosed with schizophrenia.

The author describes the struggles of his late brother, Lee, who was four years his senior and whose life was deeply affected by mental illness. The memoir opens in Erlanger, Kentucky, in 1961, with the happy memory of the author and his brother playing carefree in the rain as children. This “idyllic experience” is abruptly contrasted with a traumatic recollection of 9-year-old Lee being whipped by their father. Lee serves as the author’s mentor, stepping in for a sometimes-errant father and for a mother coping with paralysis. However, the author’s brother began to display signs of odd behavior at age 12, such as formulating grandiose, impractical plans to run away to Florida to hunt tropical fish. Lee later became prone to violent episodes, and the author overheard him whispering to himself. The family was forced to propose that Lee should be committed to a mental institution. The author goes on to describe his difficult relationship with his brother, who attempted suicide; the deaths of their parents; and coming to terms with Lee’s later terminal illness. Farmer is an expressive writer who deftly pinpoints emotions; his evocation of the joy of childhood play is captivating: “We lay on our backs in the grass, gazed at the clouds above us, and drank the rain as it hit the back of our throats. It tasted pure, fresh, and free.” As the memoir develops, the author astutely captures how Lee’s mental illness revealed itself incrementally and also emphasizes how potential signs of schizophrenia are often overlooked. On occasion, Farmer shares unnecessarily digressive detail about everyday moments: “Technically, milk was a drink, and we always had the right to have one with our food, but the chocolate in this one made it similar to a dessert.” However, such moments are by no means a major distraction from this candid, erudite story.

An affecting, if occasionally digressive, remembrance.