Apples and Oranges: My Brother and Me, Lost and Found

What is more complicated than the relations between brother and sister? To discover a brother she hardly knew, Marie Brenner, bestselling author and renowned reporter, leaves behind her life in New York City to reconnect with her ailing sibling. Reconnect is not really the right word, however, because the two have never been compatible. Marie’s brother Carl—yin to her yang, red state to her blue state—lives in Texas and the apple country of Washington State, spending his time cultivating his apple orchards, attending church, and paying NRA dues. Meanwhile, Marie has had a successful career among the “self-important lefties” her brother loathes. In her attempt to care for Carl, the journalist instead finds that health problems can hardly slow down her alpha male brother. The unspoken grudges, the long-harbored frustrations, all of it bubbles up as her brother remains determined to live.In her exposés of Big Tobacco and the Enron scandal, Brenner unveiled the secret networks and simmering malevolence behind the corporate façade. Now the reporter trains her incisive eye on the complexities of family dynamics. In the end, Apples and Oranges is a book about reconciliation. Forced to face the faults and follies of their relationship, Brenner learns to speak her brother’s language, and eventually the two are able to break down some of the walls. Apples and Oranges is a fearless look at families and what makes them stick together— for better or for worse.