Brothers Forever: An Orphan Story

Craig Mayeux
iUniverse (2007)
ISBN 9780595442195
Reviewed by Tyler R. Tichelaar for Reader Views (1/08)


“Brothers Forever” by Craig Mayeux is the tale of two orphan children, raised until age four in a New York Orphanage, then adopted by families in Cajun Louisiana. The story follows the brothers from their early years in the orphanage, through their journey to Louisiana, and then through the years of growing up and adjusting to their new families. The back cover of the book states that one brother is adopted by a childless, doting couple, the other is indentured to hard-luck, hardscrabble farmers. “The former is spoiled beyond gratification; the other abused emotionally and physically with heart-aching, backbreaking servitude.”

I was intrigued and excited to read a heart-warming story of a friendship between two boys, and while the story turned out to be quite different from what I expected from the book’s description, I still enjoyed the book a great deal. The friendship between Claude, adopted by the doting parents, and Thomas, adopted by the poor farmers, is depicted throughout the book, but I found it difficult at times to understand how the friendship could have maintained itself as long as it did due to the differences, not just in the boys’ situations, but more specifically in their temperaments. Claude’s depiction quickly becomes stereotypical and the reader loses interest in him because of his spoiled, selfish ways, but Thomas is a well-developed character who strives to fit into his family and they love him despite the hard life they lead.

The story at times became disjointed in following its main theme of brotherly love, and I think most readers like me will be more interested in the Brassette family who adopts Thomas. While the back cover describes the family as being emotionally and physically abusive, the truth is that while the boy is verbally abused, his physical abuse is only in the form of corporal punishment rather than abuse out of anger. I don’t think Thomas was mistreated by his parents; despite their own dysfunctional issues, they did love him and tried to express love to him.

I was disappointed that the book ended when Thomas is only thirteen. I would have liked to see him grow up into adulthood. I think as he grew older and reflected on his childhood he would have come to appreciate his family more and what they did for him. While the end expresses some hint that Thomas is aware that he did benefit somewhat from being adopted, I think many readers will have become engrossed in the characters by the end and wish for a sequel about Thomas.

Besides the strong depictions of the characters—even minor characters like Thomas’s cousin, Leon, are well-developed—and the character of the priest who helps the adoption process of the two boys,  is also well done—the book has strengths in its descriptive elements. At times I felt the book was a little too descriptive and moved a bit slow, but Craig Mayeux did a wonderful job of depicting several scenes in the book, especially the terrible hurricane at the middle of the novel and later the hog-butchering party. The culture of Cajun Louisiana in the early twentieth century was finely displayed, welcoming a reader not familiar with that culture into the lives of the characters, while using the French language and cultural differences sparingly enough not to overwhelm the reader. At the center of the book is also a family feud within the Brassette family which made me read the last hundred or so pages of the book in one sitting, anxiously wanting to see what would happen. The reconciliation at the end was particularly well expressed.

Overall, “Brothers Forever” is an enjoyable novel about the difficulties real people faced in Louisiana in the early 1900s and how families can pull together to get by, while also questioning, from Thomas’s perspective, what a family really is and whether a person can ever truly be part of a family when he is adopted.

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