Brother: A Novel

Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses police brutality, murder, and racism.

In Brother, Chariandy explores the lasting effects of loss and trauma. Specifically, Francis’s death is a loss that causes such profound grief that his loved ones find it difficult to move forward with their lives.

In the decade after Francis dies, Michael’s mother experiences complicated grief, a mental health diagnosis. Michael’s mother regularly dissociates from life, experiencing what Michael calls “spells” in which she becomes easily lost in space and time and avoidant of other emotions. This represents a major regression from the person she was before Francis’s death. She had been engaged with life, a hard worker who had hope for her family’s future. The trauma of her son’s death completely transforms her. Michael’s mother gave up her own family in Trinidad. Her immigration journey has been difficult, and Francis’s death is a painful reminder that her best intentions couldn’t protect her children from the racism of the country to which she immigrated. These lasting effects of loss and trauma oppress Michael’s mother for 10 years. She only begins to reconnect with the world when