"How do your siblings feel about your book?"

I'm often asked, "How do your siblings feel about your book?"

My older brother plays an important part in my book, just as he has in my life. He recently blogged about what it's like to be in a book (mine), and he picked up on one of the most important things I learned while writing:

Each sibling has a different childhood. We might live under the same roof with the same parents, but we arrive at different times in our parents' lives. All sorts of things change in the time between our births: the stresses vary, the income fluctuates, and the temperature of the marital relationship rises and falls.

My brother John (to whom I refer in the book as "Jay," his boyhood nickname) would have written a much different book— an angrier book— he says. We both recognize that it's my perspective, not his or anyone else's, that appears in The Box from Braunau.

However you look at it, my brother is one of the most interesting and engaging people I know. He's always digging into a mystery. John's a guest columnist on the website of America's premier cultural prankster, Joey Skaggs, where his LiteratEye column appears on Fridays. He also maintains a news blog on literary deception. If you're intrigued by literary fraud, or if you want to see what John says (scroll down to #34) about being in my book (or any book), check out his posts.