The Good Parts

I worshiped my older brother Don—handsome, popular, smart, track star and all that. 

Growing up, we lived in a small house in Pittsburgh. I hadn’t thought about that house for years until last week when I was reading Sabbath’s Way for my course on Philip Roth.  Those who have read Roth’s work know that he is a great writer, but his language is not for polite company.

My chances of seeing such a book on my own in 1948 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania would have been zero.  But at the back of Don’s bedroom closet, he had hidden a paperback copy of The Amboy Dukes, and after getting me to promise that I wouldn’t tell Mother and Dad about it, he showed me the “good” parts. 

Back then it was the best secret I had.