Blood Brothers: Siblings as Writers: Edited by Norman Kiell. Madison, Conn.: Int. Univ. Press, 1983, XIII + 434 pp., $40.00.

How many of the enduring stories of our western world—its Greek and Roman legends, the stark tales of the Old Testament, and the fables collected from central Europe by the Brothers Grimm—deal with the vicissitudes of love and hate between brothers? Combining this interest in prototypical siblings with the intrinsic appeal in the lives and works of creative artists, Norman Kiell has selected an immensely attractive and unique category of subjects for this fascinating, ambitious, and flawed book: a dozen pairs of brothers, each a writer, at least one of whom has achieved a position of distinction, and, in several instances, towering eminence in modern literature. Felicitously conceived, but desultorily edited, the book attempts to demonstrate the validity of two closely linked hypotheses: that the brothers' sibling relationship was a major determinant of the course of their artistic lives; and that the psychological derivatives of this relationship were reflected in the central themes and main characters of their literary works.

The prospective psychoanalytic reader glancing at the list of brothers on the book jacket may experience feelings similar to those