Final Performance

by James Brown

Book Overview

In this deeply moving novel, James Brown writes of the love between two brothers in a family both dominated and broken by an amoral mother. A beautifully managed and engrossing tale.--Thomas Keneally (Schindler's List).

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0688068421
• ISBN13: 9780688068424
• Release Date: January 1988
• Publisher: William Morrow & Company
• Length: 335 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Should be required reading

The ending of James Brown's edgy autobiographical novel. "Final Performance" is, of necessity, ineluctably tragic, because for his star-crossed protagonist, Michael David McKinney (based actually upon his older brother, actor Barry Brown) - there was no happy ending. Unlike his more recent work on the same subject ("The L.A. Diaries"), "Final Performance" is more fictionalized, and more detailed, dealing with the coming of age of two brothers under the most harrowing of circumstances - living under assumed names in Los Angeles with their mother (a mentally unstable arsonist who served time for tax evasion, and is on the run from I.R.S, agents for tax deficiencies.) The older brother, Michael (a highly intelligent, sensitive, yet troubled young man) aspires to, and achieves a certain celebrity as a promising actor in the late 1960's-early 1970's; the younger brother, Jay, left to his own devices becomes an accomplished truant and burglar. However, the fortunes of the brothers soon reverse: Michael (heretofore responsible and focused) slips deeper into depression and alcoholism, and away from acting (influenced, in no small way, by the hectoring of his mother.) Jay (who is seemingly on the fast track to delinquency) suddenly has a epiphany, and finds salvation by fleeing back to his father (a stable, good-hearted building contractor)in San Jose, who takes the boy under his wing and helps Jay develop a moral compass through hard work and responsibility. At this point, Jay's life is relatively peacable (although he will encounter vicissitudes later), but his brother, Michael, has hit rock bottom, and is seemingly acquiescent about coming to stay with his father and brother in order to sober up, and restablish his acting career. When Jay drives down to Los Angeles in order to help his brother Michael move, though, there has been a horrifying change of plans: Jay discovers that, in the interim, Michael had committed suicide. Whether it is read for its literary or its psychological value, "Final Performance" is a cautionary tale; it is a chronicle of acute familial dysfunction, and the suffering visited upon the children as a result. Perhaps if the powerful lessons of this book are assimilated by others in similar situations, we may see vibrant testimonials to fulfilling lives, instead of haunting memorials to what might have been - but wasn't. "Final Performance" is a disturbing, yet compelling book, and well worth the read.