The streets of Philadelphia have perhaps never been so mean as in Pete Dexter`s ironically titled ”Brotherly Love.”
Far from being the city of brotherly love, in Dexter`s book, Philadelphia is the backdrop for family violence of an especially vicious kind.
The book, which has been released in an abridged version by Harper Audio
(2 3/4 hours, $16), is unrelentingly dark.
It starts with a newspaper report about the deaths of two union officials on the same day, in separate locations, in 1986. The officials are described as brothers.
Dexter, a former Philadelphia Daily News columnist, next takes us to 1961.
As we soon learn, the two-Peter and Michael-were, in fact, cousins brought up under the same roof as a result of underworld loyalties strong enough to override blood ties: Phil, Peter`s thug of an uncle, was responsible for the killing of Peter`s father. Phil then had taken over the raising of 8- year-old Peter.
On the tape, ”Brotherly Love” provides a series of episodes in the cousins` lives that lead up to what we already know will be their murders. The focus is on Peter. Compared with Michael, Peter has a degree of sensitivity-or, at least, an unexpressed alienation that makes him seem more human.
Peter, however, is squelched and ultimately doomed by his family. His only relief comes in working out in a boxing ring under the eye of Nick, the gym`s operator, who is certainly more fatherly than Phil.
Michael, plain and simple, grows up to be a brute.
All this gets played out in the world of corruption and the mob. At one point, Dexter describes a member of City Council who ”lives with the fear that some day a constituent will leave his office with the impression that he is not stealing as much as the mayor.”
”Brotherly Love” is punctuated by executions and retaliations that begin to catch up with both Michael, president of the Council of Trade Unions, and Peter.
But the key to the action may be the advice that Peter, as a teenager, got from his uncle: ”What you like is to know where somebody stands. Things get tense, the guy you gotta think about isn`t your enemy. It`s the guy you don`t know he`s your enemy.”
Chris Sarandon`s reading of the book is a barely serviceable one, with an accent or two from ”Rocky” thrown in, supposedly for Philadelphia authenticity.
The tape`s producers could have made a better choice.
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