The Hundred Brothers

Jonathan Franzen in his introduction to this book calls it 'possibly the strangest novel ever published by an American' and it would be hard to disagree. To enter the world of Donald Antrim is to enter the theatre of the absurd.

As with his previous novel Elect Mr. Robinson For a Better World, Antrim creates a bizarre story within a dystopian context. In this case it is the annual gathering of a hundred brothers (but only ninety-nine actually turn up) in the decaying red library of the family's ancient crumbling mansion. Meanwhile, outside the windows, hordes of homeless people are encamped in the meadows lighting their bonfires as night encroaches. 

Beyond these details, the reader learns nothing more of the era or the world in which this story is set, not even how there came to be one hundred brothers in this one family. What the reader does learn though are the names of each brother, from the left-handed vegetarians right down to the rowdies who drink far too much red wine.

The unreliable narrator of this riotous evening is brother Doug, an alcoholic, liar and thief who hates and loves all his brothers at the same time.  These brothers play ball together in the library, injure each other quite severely, view ancient erotica, fight each other for drinks at a makeshift bar, sit down together for an improbable meal. All these events are meant to somehow culminate in the performance of Doug's ancient family ritual as the Corn King, wearing an African mask and running naked through the house pursued by his siblings.  Somewhere buried within these bizarre scenes is Doug's search for meaning in his relationship with his late father and a vague attempt to bury the ashes of the dead man.

Antrim relates his anarchic tale in his usual dead-pan manner so that the commonplace is given the same emphasis as the nonsensical, while humour and imagination combine with madness and mayhem to lure the reader into a zany and farcical  world.