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The Bone Bridge: A Brother's Story
We all wonder if we would do the right thing if called upon … even if it meant risking our own lives and sense of self. In The Bone A Brother’s Story, author Yarrott Benz is forced to deal with extraordinary self-sacrifice. This is the harrowing account of teenage brothers, as different as night and day, trapped together in a dramatic medical dilemma—a modern miracle and a modern nightmare. The only case like it in history, the true story unfolds over thirteen years as the two brothers navigate through their enmeshed lives with all that they feel for each hatred and love, rejection and acceptance, disdain and respect. Despite painful and violent conflicts, Yarrott must bear the full responsibility of keeping his brother alive. In our world of the individual, where careerism, ego, and personal gain are key, The Bone Bridge describes a vastly different human situation. It is a beautifully crafted, affecting story, honest and raw, and also one in which the reader invariably asks, What would I have done?
330 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 13, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
February 19, 2018
I really enjoyed this coming of age memoir from beginning to end. Well written and unvarnished story of a gay man growing up in the same era as I did, but with an added family tragedy that I can’t imagine anyone emerging from unscathed.
March 25, 2024
This should be in every high school library.
May 21, 2015
'Yes, that's right. We met in the middle. Didn't we?'
The very handsome Kentucky author Yarrott Benz is also an artist, memoirist, and essayist and now enters the literary field with a book that by all factors of judging should be at the top of the list for several categories of awards - memoir, health issues, LGBT issues, and simply, novel! He is an artist in every sense of the word, having has written about architecture's seminal role in art history and the psychology of visual trends and teaching and creating in New York City and in Los Angeles. He now lives on a farm outside Lexington, Kentucky.
Yarrott relates this compelling true story with the flair of a fine writer. We learn of his large Tennessee family - 2 older brothers and a sister (Yarrott is the youngest), a mother who was crippled since age 16 but went on to be a nurse and then the wife of a doctor - Yarrott's father and mother. Yarrott focuses on his relationship with Charley, 3 years his senior, and if ever there were exact opposites in brothers, these two were at the far ends of the polar spectrum. They were enemies in so much as Charley made Yarrott's life miserable.
But all this changed when Charley gradually came down with aplastic anemia (a disease in which there are no platelets, the necessary factor for blood clotting). After a long build up of Charley being undiagnosed but ill, the day came when the diagnosis was discovered and Charley's physician treated him with platelet packs - but that `cure' was unreliable due to the often mismatched transfusions. Yarrott and his family were tested and Yarrott was the perfect match to be a platelet donor - and Charley's life was rescued by the brother he had mistreated.
Other factors make this book meaningful - Yarrott come to accept his same sex preference - much to the chagrin of his family - and after Charley stabilizes (remission) Yarrott pursues his own private life as an artist and a partnered gay man. That is until Charley has a recrudescence and is on chemotherapy and finally dies. It is at the end of his life that Charley finally is able to tell Yarrott he loves him. And the ending of the book is warmly touching.
Conflicts, past set aside in favor of life-saving measures, all the while searching for his own niche in a world antagonistic to Yarrott's being happy - all of this, for this reader, exemplifies a true hero. Yarrott is not only a giver of life for his brother, he is also proving with this book that he is a gifted writer. Highly Recommended.
The very handsome Kentucky author Yarrott Benz is also an artist, memoirist, and essayist and now enters the literary field with a book that by all factors of judging should be at the top of the list for several categories of awards - memoir, health issues, LGBT issues, and simply, novel! He is an artist in every sense of the word, having has written about architecture's seminal role in art history and the psychology of visual trends and teaching and creating in New York City and in Los Angeles. He now lives on a farm outside Lexington, Kentucky.
Yarrott relates this compelling true story with the flair of a fine writer. We learn of his large Tennessee family - 2 older brothers and a sister (Yarrott is the youngest), a mother who was crippled since age 16 but went on to be a nurse and then the wife of a doctor - Yarrott's father and mother. Yarrott focuses on his relationship with Charley, 3 years his senior, and if ever there were exact opposites in brothers, these two were at the far ends of the polar spectrum. They were enemies in so much as Charley made Yarrott's life miserable.
But all this changed when Charley gradually came down with aplastic anemia (a disease in which there are no platelets, the necessary factor for blood clotting). After a long build up of Charley being undiagnosed but ill, the day came when the diagnosis was discovered and Charley's physician treated him with platelet packs - but that `cure' was unreliable due to the often mismatched transfusions. Yarrott and his family were tested and Yarrott was the perfect match to be a platelet donor - and Charley's life was rescued by the brother he had mistreated.
Other factors make this book meaningful - Yarrott come to accept his same sex preference - much to the chagrin of his family - and after Charley stabilizes (remission) Yarrott pursues his own private life as an artist and a partnered gay man. That is until Charley has a recrudescence and is on chemotherapy and finally dies. It is at the end of his life that Charley finally is able to tell Yarrott he loves him. And the ending of the book is warmly touching.
Conflicts, past set aside in favor of life-saving measures, all the while searching for his own niche in a world antagonistic to Yarrott's being happy - all of this, for this reader, exemplifies a true hero. Yarrott is not only a giver of life for his brother, he is also proving with this book that he is a gifted writer. Highly Recommended.
August 30, 2016
**No major spoilers, but I do talk about some plot points**
This book has moments so unbelievable, you'll have to keep reminding yourself that you're reading a memoir.
The Bone Bridge covers Benz's strained relationship with his brother Charley from their childhood in Nashville, Tennessee in the late '60s through 1980. At sixteen Benz is on the cusp of self-discovery and big plans for his own future, when a crushing blow to his family puts that future on hold. In 1972 Charley is diagnosed with aplastic anemia, a rare disease that prevents his bones from producing platelets. Without them, his blood can't clot normally, meaning the lightest injury puts his life at risk. In 1972 treatment options are slim to none, and things are looking very bad for Charley. When it's discovered that a transfusion of Benz's platelets stimulate Charley's own production, Charley's life is spared and it seems like a miracle. But what happens to a family when the life of one member is totally dependent on regular platelet donations from another? In the '70s these donations are very painful and can only be given in six hour sessions twice a week. Over the course of the next decade, Benz has to balance selflessness with resentment, love with bitterness, and his own homosexuality with the stifling homophobia of suburban Nashville.
The book has emotional gravity in spades, but readers will also marvel from a medical perspective at the advancement in the treatment of aplastic anemia that this singular case facilitated. This story is beautifully told, and Benz's own journey of self-acceptance is every bit as relateable and fascinating as the tenuous connection he shares with his brother.
This book has moments so unbelievable, you'll have to keep reminding yourself that you're reading a memoir.
The Bone Bridge covers Benz's strained relationship with his brother Charley from their childhood in Nashville, Tennessee in the late '60s through 1980. At sixteen Benz is on the cusp of self-discovery and big plans for his own future, when a crushing blow to his family puts that future on hold. In 1972 Charley is diagnosed with aplastic anemia, a rare disease that prevents his bones from producing platelets. Without them, his blood can't clot normally, meaning the lightest injury puts his life at risk. In 1972 treatment options are slim to none, and things are looking very bad for Charley. When it's discovered that a transfusion of Benz's platelets stimulate Charley's own production, Charley's life is spared and it seems like a miracle. But what happens to a family when the life of one member is totally dependent on regular platelet donations from another? In the '70s these donations are very painful and can only be given in six hour sessions twice a week. Over the course of the next decade, Benz has to balance selflessness with resentment, love with bitterness, and his own homosexuality with the stifling homophobia of suburban Nashville.
The book has emotional gravity in spades, but readers will also marvel from a medical perspective at the advancement in the treatment of aplastic anemia that this singular case facilitated. This story is beautifully told, and Benz's own journey of self-acceptance is every bit as relateable and fascinating as the tenuous connection he shares with his brother.
September 27, 2015
Excellent book and amazing story
February 5, 2017
3.5--I enjoyed this harrowing story, honestly told. Also local setting.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews