Brother Broken

  Brother Broken Good morning, waky, waky. Here's a condensed description of our home... Ma famille lived on a farm until 1958, which was slightly before my time. Dad decided to move off the farm and into town for his kids to have more advantages. He kept on farming, though he had to commute an extra eight miles every day. The modified granary that served as my parents’ first home had become inadequate to meet the needs of a growing family. There were limitations on how much Dad could adapt a single-room dwelling to accommodate six individuals. It was a constant effort for Mom to keep babies and toddlers away from the woodstove used for heating and cooking. Our new home had been used as a rooming house. It was built during the first decade of the twentieth century. By the time my family acquired it, the house was run down—but still a marked improvement from the granary. The main floor had a lobby, an eating area, a kitchen, and living quarters. Guest rooms and primitive bathroom...

   Brother Broken Good morning. It's a going-to-church kind of day, so walk with me, that's where we're headed. Sunday, May 16, 1965, 9:45 a.m. When the church bell rings, it’s time to get to Mass. Sunday mornings are a ruckus of primping and fussing. Boys have their hair slicked smooth with Brylcreem, women cap their lids with pretty bonnets, little girls wear tiny white gloves, and Dads shine their shoes. My family walks from home to church, which is only half a block. We fill the third pew from the front on the left side, facing the altar. Mom and Dad sit at each end of the bench to keep us hemmed in. The rest of us cram in the middle, except for whichever brother’s turn it is to serve as altar boy. After Mass, Mom rushes home to make sure the chicken in the oven isn’t over- or undercooked. The priest is coming for dinner. She sets the table with nine plates, one more than the current number of family members. The house is clean and tidy. Mom spent the previous day scrub...

  Brother Broken Welcome back again. It's the weekend and I hope you have great plans to enjoy it. Here's more info about Brother Broken. I will let the book tell you a bit about the Canadian setting:  At any given time, the population of our village never exceeded one hundred. It occupies a very small piece of ground in north western Saskatchewan. The community sits on the edge of northern boreal forest. Farming is the area's main industry. Our village borrows its name from the Cree language. The word is Makwa which translates as loon . Most would agree that the name Makwa holds a nicer flavour than its English counterpart, especially since the word loon holds two meanings. One signifies an aquatic bird that frequents the nearby lakes. The other alludes to a not-so-flattering term describing a state of mind. Strange things can happen in Makwa, so in either sense the name fits the village. For what it's worth, Makwa exists on the opposite side of bush-line from normal....

 Brother Broken Welcome back to my blog.   Today's highlight of Brother Broken is the Epigraph, which sets the theme of the book, and includes a little bit of trivia. EPIGRAPH   A brave man once requested me To answer questions that are key Is it to be or not to be And I replied, “Oh why ask me?” M.A.S.H. theme song: “Suicide is Painless” by Mike Altman and Johnny Mandel   I wanted to use words from the song 'Suicide is Painless' in the title of the book, but it seemed absurd and inappropriate, considering the piece was meant to be the "stupidest song ever written" (Robert Altman). As M.A.S.H.'s movie director, Robert Altman wanted it sung during the staged funeral of a medic who had faked suicide. The director's son, 14-year-old Mike Altman, wrote the lyrics in under an hour and it became a No. 1 hit in the UK. Music lovers obviously didn't consider it a stupid song. The lyrics are brilliant, the tune is catchy and when it gets in yo...