Born Brothers: A Novel

by Larry Woiwode

Woiwode first introduced the Neumiller family in the critically acclaimed novel Beyond the Bedroom Wall. In Born Brothers he returns to this North Dakota family, focusing on the 30-year relationship between two Neumiller brothers, Charles and Jerome.

The lives of two brothers from North Dakota are followed for thirty years through hatred and friendship.

Genres: Fiction

611 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1988

About the author

Larry Woiwode was designated Poet Laureate of North Dakota by the Legislative Assembly in 1995. He served as Writer in Residence at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1973-74; and from 1983-88 was a tenured professor at the State University of New York, Binghamton, and director of its Creative Writing Program.

Larry Woiwode’s fiction has appeared in Antaeus, Antioch Review, Atlantic Monthly, GQ, Harpers, The New Yorker, Paris Review, Partisan Review, and many other publications; his poetry has appeared in Atlantic Monthly, Harpers, The New Yorker, Mademoiselle, Poetry North, Tar River Poetry, Transatlantic Review, Works in Progress, and other publications and venues, including broadsides and anthologies.

His novels and his memoirs are widely acclaimed and his writings have been translated into a dozen languages and earned him international recognition: he is the recipient of the William Faulkner Foundation Award, 1969; has been a Guggenheim Fellow, 1971-72; a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the National Book Award, 1975; chosen by the American Association of Publishers for a novel to present to the White House Library, 1976; is recipient of an Award in Literature from the National Institute and American Academy of Arts & Letters, 1980; of the John Dos Passos Prize (for a diverse body of work), 1991; and of a Lannan Literary Fellowship, 2001. He has also received North Dakota’s highest honor, the Theodore Roosevelt Roughrider Award, conferred by Governor Sinner, in 1992; and in 2011 received the Emeritus Award from the High Plains Awards Committee, for “A Body of Work as Vast as the West.” His recent publications include Words Made Fresh, and The Invention of Lefse, published in 2011 by Crossway Books. His new novel Blackburn Bay is nearly ready to be viewed by agents and publishers, and in 2010 he completed a new book of short stories

Reviews

[Franco · Rating 5 out of 5]

The story line of this novel so closely follows that of Woiwode's second, and first epic, novel, Beyond the Bedroom Wall, thirty years worth of one midwestern family from the 1930's through the 1960's, that it's tempting to write it off. But this book focuses on the two older brothers, Jerome and Charles, and their childhood memories, so that everything that happens in Beyond the Bedroom Wall is recounted from a fresh perspective, and gosh darn it, I like it even better. Woiwode is a storyteller, and I'm a sucker for it.

[Mim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this a long time ago. I remember liking it, but don't want to reread it as the pile of to-be-read is getting long.