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“It is surprising how little the influence of siblings is appreciated in literary history,” Nigel Hamilton observes in the opening essay of Blood Brothers: Siblings As Writers. “Generally, this is because only one brother or sister becomes celebrated as an artist, the role of the artist's brothers or sisters then being considered in a subordinate context.” In an effort to cast additional light on the importance of sibling relationships, Norman Kiell has assembled a volume of essays focusing on 24 brother-writers: Thomas and Heinrich Mann, James and Stanislaus Joyce, Oscar and Willie Wilde, Max Beerbohm and Herbert Beerbohm-Tree, Aldous and Julian Huxley, Evelyn and Alec Waugh, William Michael and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Anthony and Peter Shaffer, William and Henry James, Lytton and James Strachey, Isaac Bash-evis and I.J. Singer, and Lawrence and Gerald Durrell. The 12 biographical sketches in Blood Brothers explore the fascinating link between kinship and creativity; and although Kiell concedes that awareness of sibling rivalry may not be essential to an understanding of individual works, it is crucial to an understanding of each writer's individual achievement.
The central thesis of Blood Brothers is that sibling bonds are far more labyrinthine than researchers have imagined. These sibling bonds, not unlike the psychoanalyst's countertransference, are unconsciously encoded into the writer's work. Sibling rivalry, which is associated with ambivalence and guilt, is only one of the many dynamics of kinship; other issues include birth order, sex role preferences, succorance needs, symbiotic dependence, oedipal triangles, academic achievement, latent homosexuality, and separation-in-dividuation. Kiell argues in the introduction that the sibling relationship is a lifelong process, highly influential throughout the life cycle. Sibling relationships are as individualized as each family: some of the relationships in Blood Brothers demonstrate a lifetime of brotherly love, s