We Were Brothers

by Barry Moser

Preeminent illustrator Barry Moser renders the memories of his youth--in luminous drawings and candid prose--on his quest to understand how he and his identically raised brother could have become such very different men.    

Barry and Tommy Moser were born of the same parents, were raised in the same small Tennessee community where they slept in the same bedroom and were poisoned by their family’s deep racism and anti-Semitism. But as they grew older, their perspectives and their paths grew further and further apart. From attitudes about race, to food, politics, and money, the brothers began to think so differently that they could no longer find common ground, no longer knew how to talk to each other, and for years there was more strife between them than affection.

When Barry was in his late fifties and Tommy in his early sixties, their fragile brotherhood reached a tipping point and blew apart. From that day forward they did not speak. But fortunately, their story does not end there. With the raw emotions that so often surface when we talk of our siblings, Barry recalls why and how they were finally able to traverse that great divide and reconcile their kinship before it was too late.

Featuring Moser’s stunning drawings, especially commissioned for the book, this powerful true story captures the essence of sibling relationships—all their complexities, contradictions, and mixed blessings.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Biography, Biography Memoir, Book Club, Family, Friendship

186 pages, Hardcover

First published October 20, 2015

About the author

Barry Moser (born 1940) is a renowned artist, most famous as a printmaker and illustrator of numerous works of literature.

Reviews

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Memory and perspective. Bullying and its effects. Racial prejudice and the mixed messages received by brothers raised near Chattanooga, Tennessee. I am sure many of us realize how complicated relationships between siblings can be. Raised in the same house, our memories can be different, our experiences perceived differently. So it was between Barry and Tommy Moser. Bad experiences at military school and the long term effects. Physical fights between the brothers, with Barry, the younger most often the loser. Differences in the way they saw black and white people. All these things were a bone of contention between the bothers for a very long time.

Told in straightforward, simple prose this is a wonderful story of brothers, estrangement and at last reconciliation. It is touching, heartfelt and reminds us of how important family is truly. Also how short time can actually be. After finishing this I went and called my younger sister, closest to me in age. We haven't seen each other in over a year. Too long.

[Linda · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a book that struck me as one that would have made more sense as a privately published memoir for family and friends. Barry Moser is a brilliant artist and illustrator but a poor writer to my mind and ear. This is ostensibly the story of two siblings who grow up in the same prejudiced Southern household but go in very different directions with their careers and where they live (Barry in New England and his brother, Tommy, still down South).

Barry's experiences growing up cause him to look at racial issues differently than the rest of his family and this book is an attempt for him to find answers to how this happened. I found it difficult to keep track of the extended family and all the other people mentioned in passing, making it hard to follow the subtext of actions or remarks. Barry is estranged from his brother for many years and decides to try to find a way to talk about these differences before one of them dies. He starts the "conversation" with a brutal letter that I am surprised his brother answered.

The two siblings do come to some kind of peace with each other, but I found no lessons for me about family relationships, community, or racial relations North or South. I felt that the book saw the light of day because of Barry Moser's famous name and not because of the quality of the text or story. I will say that it is a quick read, finished it in an evening.

[Gail Cooke · Rating 4 out of 5]

As I had many times seen the pleasure Barry Moser’s art brought to children and adults alike I was eager to read his memoir. Of course, after years of admiring his work I had a picture of Moser the man in my mind - it was far from the truth.

Born in Chattanooga at a time when the city was rife with racism and anti-Semitism Moser also found these views expressed in his own home and accepted by his older brother, Tommy. This created a rift between the two that widened with the years. In the school yard both boys were ripe for bullying - Barry was fat and not at all athletic, Tommy had developmental problems that held him back in school. At home the boys fought almost nonstop - at one time so violently that the police were called.

As the years passed Tommy dropped out of military school and retained the racist and anti-Semitic views with which Barry totally disagreed. After studying theology and becoming a preacher Barry turned to art full time. Eventually in adulthood the brothers exchanged letters which revealed how each may have misjudged the other and the two enjoyed almost ten years of harmony before Tommy passed away.

Enriched with Barry’s art We Were Brothers is so much more than a memoir - it is an examination of a time and place in America and life itself.

[Brent · Rating 5 out of 5]

Barry was my art teacher, 1978-9, when I could by no means do art; I just really liked to be in the room when he taught. This is like that. I sure never knew this side of Barry and his late brother. This telling is accompanied by Barry's illustrations from photos and memories.
Barry Moser is one of the great American illustrators, and, here, one of the great American memoirists.
Recommended.
Thanks, Fulton County Public Library, for the loan.

[Don · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was released this month, but I read an advance reader copy. I am often disappointed by the marketing blurbs that are on the backs of ARCs because they are so sensationalized as to make you think you read a different book than described. I think that these blurbs oft times are dismissive of the work the author has actually done. This came close to being like that for me.

Barry Moser is a renowned and award winning illustrator and his writing is gentle storytelling. There is drama in some of the events of this memoir, however the drama promised by the marketing here of a family/brothers ripped asunder (my words) in every possible way by racism and anti-semitism just didn't come through for me.

There are dramatic moments of that definitely, but the other parts of the story were more powerful for me. It's more complicated than what is put in the blurb.

Aren't all memoirs really more complicated than can be described?

[Summer Adams · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m feeling conflicted after finishing this book; I was sold on this book originally as it portrays two brothers who grew up in the deep south, with one brother growing and evolving past the bigotry he grew up learning & the other brother staying stuck in his ways. However, this book didn’t really seem to have any flow - I felt that the majority of the book was a collection of sporadic childhood stories about the two brothers, with the last few pages being letters of reconciliation that the brothers wrote to each other once they were in their 60s. I wanted more from this book (lessons, learnings, why they did/didn’t change), but it was an easy and interesting read nonetheless.

[Dan Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

Worth a quick read, very short sentimental story about growing up in the south and growing apart.

[Rachael · Rating 3 out of 5]

The tone of this book is highly conversational. I felt like Barry Moser was sitting next to me, telling me his stories. But what would be fine in conversation doesn't translate well to memoir.

This book read like a collection of anecdotes--stories that might be interesting to family members, or those who grew up in Chattanooga in the 1940s/1950s, but I found it hard to connect. About halfway through the book I wanted to stop because it didn't seem like the story that was promised on the book jacket or in the blurbs was ever going to appear.

This is billed as a book that examines a sibling relationship. When siblings grow up in the same environment, how does one explain how they become radically different in adulthood? We see a lot of Barry and Tommy growing up, and we see some of their fights, but Moser doesn't ever drill deep to figure out what's going on. Again, we get anecdotes but not a lot of reflection or examination.

The book starts out promising, and the end provides some musing, but the reflection upon the anecdotes is completely missing.

I also am not clear as to what's behind the deep racism of the Moser family. Maybe it's just enough to know that the boys grew up in the South in the Jim Crow era. Maybe I don't need more explanation than that. But one puzzling thing is never explained: Moser's mother had a dear friend from childhood who was black. They remained good friends through adulthood. That the mother in a racist household would have a black friend is never really examined. How did the mother's husband feel about this? The rest of her family? The neighbors? Why wasn't Vernetta's presence enough to help the children see that racism wasn't the answer?

There's a lot of potential in this memoir, but it reads like an early draft. More editing would have helped to tease out the reflection that's needed, especially in the middle of the book.

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

"We Were Brothers" is a beautifully written memoir of 2 young brothers raised in the South in the 40's and 50's. Barry Moser writes eloquently about the time period and his family. Racism was a fact of life, even when not a fact of heart. It was understood and to a certain point, expected, by both blacks and whites. Barry mourns the fact that he and his brother, Tommy, never really close, are so different in attitudes, and that the gap between them is large. During his late 50's, he writes his brother a letter, explaining his anger at him and his longing that they were closer as brothers. His brother responds, and the gap begins to be breached.

This short book is a quick read, but one full of honesty. The accompanying illustrations are amazing, and I feel blessed to have seen this part of Moser's talent alone. While reading the book, you might think "what does this have to do with me?", but the fact is, all families are fractious, and Barry's honest appraisal of that, and the willingness of he and his brother Tommy to reconcile is heartwarming.

[Tiffany · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was okay, I don't regret having read it--my criterion for a 2-star rating. Not something I would recommend to anyone else, though (a shame, too, because it's by a local author). To my recollection, I felt as if I was reading a stranger's musings about his life without his offering anything useful or particularly thought provoking to me in return. Moser's life story wasn't interesting enough to me to make this an enjoyable read on its own merits.

[Ann Gainer · Rating 4 out of 5]

A revealing and provocative memoir of an illustrator I've long admired and knew nothing about. Very candid accounting of his very southern upbringing and difficult sibling relationship.

[CTEP]

Barry Moser is primarily known for his illustrations, some of which can be found on the pages of We Were Brothers. However, they are not the main focus of this memoir, which revisits over six decades of Barry's mostly fraught relationship with his older brother Tommy. Growing up in Chattanooga, Tennessee, both brothers were regularly exposed to the racism that is stereotypical of the South. (Note: seeing the South as a backwards, racist place is how people living in 98% White towns in New England are able to convince themselves that they are not also racist, when they're really just more subtle about it. This is the most important fact I have learned after being raised in the South and going to school in New England.) However, the physical fights that characterized the early years of their brotherhood eventually gave way to arguments about the humanity and rights of people of color, specifically Black people. While Barry spends his late teens and early twenties learning about the hurt that his racism has caused, Tommy recycles the views of his predecessors, and doesn't begin to understand or acknowledge his own racism until very late in his life. Until then, Tommy's racist attitudes bring a significant amount of shame to Barry and make it difficult for the two brothers to truly share a bond.

I can't directly relate to Barry's troublesome relationship with his brother, as my own brother and I get along very well and share identical views on virtually every human right that has somehow been turned into a contentious political issue. However, the differences between Barry and Tommy with regards to their views on racial equality (I use "equality" rather than "equity" here because, as we discover towards the end of his memoir, even Barry is opposed to affirmative action and therefore still has a long way to go before we can say he supports racial equity) does remind me of the differences that exist between my White generational peers. While many of us are willing to listen to and disseminate the voices of people of color and spend the rest of our lives unlearning the racism we grew up with, some of us are only willing to do this up to a certain point, and still others completely refuse to even hear other people talk about white privilege and racism. What makes some White young adults more closed off to the fact that our very existence has caused and continues to cause a lot of trauma for people of color?

Supposedly, a lot of it has to do with one's environment(s). For example, despite some incidents in his childhood that suggested that Barry was already less aggressively racist than Tommy, Barry notes that he first began the process of unlearning his racist upbringing as a student of the ministry at the University of Chattanooga. Although this new environment does explain Barry's newfound consciousness, the fact that Barry grew up with Tommy and others who shared his harmful views doesn't explain why a young Barry had no problem doing things like sitting between two Black women on a crowded bus. Likewise, my brother and I were both raised by right-wing parents who suddenly become deeply concerned about Black-on-Black crime every time a police officer murders a Black person. Our classmates weren't really much better -- my brother recently graduated from high school, and several months ago he told me that the kids in his English class were huge fans of Islamophobia. Of course, my brother and I haven't always been the decent White allies we are now, and we'll probably be even more conscious White allies a year from today. I would not be surprised if somebody told me that something I've written here is problematic. Regardless, we both somehow managed to not absorb the harmful views that populate our home and hometown, and now we get to listen to our parents and peers tell us that their disagreement with the Black Lives Matter movement is "just their opinion". An opinion is what you think about a book or film or whatever, not about somebody's right to not get killed just for living while Black.

[Don Powers · Rating 4 out of 5]

WE WERE BROTHERS; the audio book
Barry Moser



Known best for his wonderful paintings and engravings that enliven scores of children's books. Moser now proves to be a gifted storyteller bringing his southern, racist childhood to life. Ostensibly about his brother, Tommy, this memoir captures the life of Chattanooga among the lower classes--both white and black--in the 1940s and 50s.
Moser recounts in painterly detail his upbringing in two main lines of development: his life as younger sibling to a bullying brother and his slowly burgeoning realization of the injustice and heartbreak of the inveterate racism in and all around him. Both threads are followed into the present time and achieve some degree of resolution.
In the audio book version we miss Moser's illustrations; but much is gained by hearing the author's own voice. This is a deeply felt story that can complement TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. Be advised that the n- and f- words occur throughout this work (they flow absolutely naturally in the given context. We must remember that when you walk in someone else's shoes, you have to expect to be a little uncomfortable.)

[Rita Anderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked up this book for a number of reasons, one of the reasons being that I do not know much about relationships between brothers. I am a female-my brother has no brothers, and my husband and son have no brothers. So, I thought I could learn more about brothers from this book. Also, I grew up in New England, so I thought I could learn more about the experience of being raised in the south. I was somewhat disappointed in the book-numerous fights between the brothers were documented, and some stories were told about racial prejudices in the south. It was a quick read-it felt like there was not a lot of depth to the stories being told. The best part of the book was toward the end, when letters were exchanged between the brothers and, in the process of communicating, some old wounds were healed. In their twilight years, the brothers made an attempt to understand one another, and to really listen to each other and, by doing this, they enriched their lives.

[Joe Keefhaver · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a readable, but weird little book. It centers on the sibling rivalries and conflicts the author had with his brother, Tommy. While interesting, I felt as if I was intruding on a private family argument and should excuse myself. A side theme is the racism of his family and of Chattanooga, TN, in general. Moser's family never had any confrontations with their black neighbors, and, in fact, were very close friends with one black woman. Yet they were still virulent racists and convinced that, as a whole, Negroes were inferior in every way. The author takes a stab at trying to understand why this was true, but doesn't go very far with it. The Baylor School in Chattanooga is depicted as a miserable place. I see it still exists, so I hope it has improved when it comes to its attitude toward hazing and bullying.

[Little · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked this out for my short-books book club and I regret it. In a book published in 2015, and white man is writing about his racist childhood and racist brother, and it uses the n-word over and over and over. Including to say, "Don't you realize how you saying n------- dehumanizes us both?" My guy, look: n-------. You don't have to write it out! You can show us all that your brother was saying that word, and yes even you were saying that word, without saying that word again! SERIOUSLY!

This is basically a memoire about his uneventful southern childhood. So from that lens, it's fine. And it's short, so I didn't have to read it for very long.

[Geeta Ramani · Rating 5 out of 5]

In "We Were Brothers", Moser Barry shares with us a very personal and poignant part of his life. Inspite of the many successes, the failure to bond with his sibling troubles him till the end. He couldn't escape his brother's actions caused by an inferiority complex, which his brother carried most of his life. It is the story about the differences between two brothers, their estrangement and reconciliation in their twilight years.

My takeaway:
“Love is not love that can only love those already flawless. That kind of love requires no enlargement of the self: It requires no love.”

[Linda Spear · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've only known Barry Moser as an illustrator, not a writer. But at library book sales, some books just jump out at me, as this one did. It is a most beautiful story, so moving, and so heartbreakingly genuine. Moser's writing made me think of Pat Conroy so I had to track him down and tell him so. Thank goodness for email! What a surprise it was to hear back from him and to write back and forth a few times. This man is not only gifted but also a beautiful person. I can just tell.

And I cried during almost the entire last chapter. True Confessions.

[Anne Francani · Rating 5 out of 5]

We had met Barry Moser at the Brandywine River Museum a number of years ago when he had an exhibit there. Both his art and his talk were wonderful. I especially like the etchings he did for a King James Bible . . . spectacular. We have watched the movie about the making of that Bible (A Thief Among the Angels: Barry Moser and The Making of The Pennyroyal Caxton Bible) and I have a copy of it. When I saw that he had written this book, I was glad to buy and read it. He isa very interesting man.

[Beverly · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book turned out to just be OK for me. Although the author is a well known illustrator, I don't think his writing skills are quite up to the same par. Although I enjoyed learning about the increasingly strained relationship with his brother and it's eventual resolution, the story seemed to jump around from one incident to another...not very linear. Anyway--it was a quick read and my last one for this year!!!

[Marcia · Rating 3 out of 5]

A memoir of two brothers with very little in common whose division grows deeper after one leaves the south and turns from the racism that was part and parcel of their upbringing. Ultimately, their love for each other allows them to forge a truce, which while hard won remained tenuous and superficial.

[Manda · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars. I can’t totally figure out what the thesis is, but I didn’t think that Tommy was the only one that came off poorly—seems like a lot was left out between their childhood and then being senior citizens. I think had he structured this as a memoir and not just a story of his brother, it would have been more effective.

[Kristine Brickey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this while in the midst of an 'Equality for All' unit, teaching Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl with my 8th graders. Truly appreciate the honesty Barry Moser puts forth, as well as the clearly natural use of higher vocabulary.

[Kylene Jones · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was not overly impressed by this book. I thought it was going to be more about how they came to have different beliefs, instead it was a book about sibling rivalry and them coming to understand each other the last few years of their lives.

[Shelley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very evocative and moving. Moser's strong and lucid voice brings family tensions, political debates and rural America into intense relief; the characters are strong and beautifully drawn. The pull between loving and hating in families is truly well wrought. Highly recommended.

[Carol Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the book overall. Perhaps not written in as polished a style as I am used to reading. Moser is a writer and this is his "memoir" of his relationship with his brother. His brother was a racist and he moved out of the south and became much more tolerant. This is their story......

[Martha S Morris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Engaging

For anyone who grew up with brothers or sisters, this book offers a thoughtful perspective on the complex interactions between siblings. Encourages thoughtful introspection regarding childhood memories. Easy reading.

[A.J. Hall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quick read that gives some insight into Southern culture of the not too distant past. Was entertaining until the resolution where it got a little confusing.

[Diane · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the story of two brothers. They were raised in a home filled with prejudice and abuse. The subject material was difficult to read.

[Sandy Carmichael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting look at brothers, so far apart in their thinking; and yet always brothers with their own memories movativing them. In the end they are able to admit their love for one another.