My Brother, My Enemy

by Mitchell Wilson

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

352 pages, Paperback

First published September 12, 2007

Reviews

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

My dad recommended this book to me. Apparently Mitchell Wilson was a very popular novelist in Russia (where my dad grew up), but remains virtually unknown in the US. This is a very American novel about two brothers who attempt to invent the television in their own garage, kinda like Steve Jobs but in the 20s. The book mostly focuses on the inception and basic implementation of their idea, but we don't know how far they get. It's not until the end of the book that we find out that there are plenty of other people across the country who are racing to develop the same technology.

As far as I know ,the story is entirely fictional, although the scientific parts were well researched (Mitchell Wilson being a former physicist and all). Still, the focus isn't so much the science but the ambivalent relationship between the brothers and the discrepancies in their ethics. Along the way they end up finding love and recruiting sketchy businessmen, and a lot of tension arises from this overlap between work and personal life. It gets messy and kinda nauseous but in the end it's their giving older sister that brings them together. Overall solid book

[Franklin · Rating 4 out of 5]

1919 or thereabout. Margot, Ken, and David, three underage runaways, live in a barn and operate a garage there. Ken and David attend the university and invent television in their spare time. There is quite a bit of info about the electronics of capturing, transmitting and displaying a moving picture. This doesn't detract from the story. Their successes, failures and frustrations with development and financing are many.

There is a high flying entrepreneur who is attracted to Margot.

The relationships are complex. At one point ambiguous. Emotions are intense.

Wilson was a scientist, before he became a writer. He wrote many nonfiction books.

I intend to read more of his novels.