From the book's back cover: Edwin Booth grew up to become the greatest actor on the nineteenth-century American stage while his younger brother John grew up to assassinate a president. Vincent van Gogh would never have survived without the financial and emotional support of his younger brother, Theo, in a clautrophobic relationship that both defined and confined them. Henry David Thoreau's life was shadowed by the early death of his older brother, John, who haunted and inspired his writing.
Colt parallels his quest to understand how his own brothers shaped his life with an examination of the complex relationships between famous brothers in history. Illuminating and affecting, Colt's magnificent book is a history told through the lens of fraternal rivalry -- and love.

page 412: Not long ago, I was in Dedham for a funeral. Before the service, I walked around our old neighborhood. ... The chestnut tree on Chestnut Street was gone. The jail that once housed Sacco and Vanzetti now housed the retired parents of our boyhood friends in luxury condominiums ...

page 412: I have known my wife for thirty years. I have known my closest friends for forty-five. I have known my brothers for almost sixty. We are the only witneses to one another's rapidly receding pasts, a vanishing world whose giants are disappearing ...