Marie Brenner "5 Ways To Better Sibling Relationships"

Noted author and Writer at Large for Vanity Fair magazine, Marie Brenner, discussed her latest memoir, "Apples & Oranges: My Brother & Me, Lost & Found" at Flashpoint Academy in Chicago on June 24, 2008. Marie was joined by former director of the Illinois Film Office, Brenda Sexton, for the Q & A portion.

http://mariebrenner.com/ao/content/
http://www.flashpointacademy.com

BEHIND THE BOOK - APPLES & ORANGES by Marie Brenner

"It's said you can't go home again. You can. If you are very lucky, sometimes you get a chance to reframe a part of your life - to see your family in an entirely different way.

Crisis is the editor that allows you to rewrite the page.

I am a reporter. Questions are my trade. But a few years ago, I began to understand it was necessary for me to ask questions about my own family. More to the point, I wanted to understand my brother Carl.

For years, we had been locked into role playing - hamster wheel behavior. One word defined my relationship with my brother: struggle. At times, we were like moose with antlers locked. Bicker, bicker, bicker. He glared, I glared.

We managed to set ourselves on different sides of America. Our conversations could sound like: How could you say that? Why did you write that?

Sometimes we managed to get along. Even to be each other's confidantes. Why couldn't it be that way all the time?

I never knew -- and still don't -- where these lightening storms came from. Was it Carl? Was it me?

My mother had a name for us: Apples and Oranges. He was the apple. Was that why he became an apple farmer?

Here is what I know now: We were two different apples from the same tree. It took us a very long time, but we learned that what mattered was not what divided us, but what connected us.

This is my story of how we learned to see the tree."

-Marie Brenner

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