In Iris Murdoch’s novel, The Green Knight, Lucas is the short, swarthy adopted son, and Clement is his tall, handsome, natural born younger brother. Early in the novel, we learn that Lucas was poised to savagely attack and murder Clement, with no provocation, when Peter Mir steps in to absorb the blow himself.
I don’t know what happened after that. The brother-on-brother violence was so upsetting that I put the book down and never picked it back up again. Maybe Lucas and Clement made up and lived happily every after. Maybe Clement came to his senses and beat the ever-loving shit out of Lucas before disowning him forever. Maybe zombies ate both their brains. We’ll never know.
Reading about Dane Cook and his half-brother/half-embezzler reminded me of The Green Knight. Dane Cook’s older brother, Darryl McCauley, was a corrections officer when Dane’s career started moving and Dane need a business manager. Who better than family, right? Nearly anybody, it turns out. Darryl pled guilty this year to stealing millions from Dane, and a few days ago he was sentenced to five years in prison and was required to pay his brother $12 million.
Imagine what family dynamic leads a young man with a budding entertainment career to recruit his older, inexperienced brother to serve as his business manager. Imagine how much Darryl must have resented feeling beholden to his baby brother/benefactor for giving him an opportunity that he could never have scored on his own.
Why does a man steal from his brother? Because it’s the only fucking way to get back at him for not being a loser!
Image credit
No comments:
Post a Comment