National Network for Equitable Library Service

Featuring an exclusive, never-before-heard piece of music, the last written together by the legendary Van Halen brothers! In this intimate and open account—nothing like any rock-and-roll memoir you've ever read—Alex Van Halen shares his personal story of family, friendship, music, and brotherly love in a remarkable tribute to his beloved brother and bandmate. Told with acclaimed New Yorker writer Ariel Levy, Brothers is seventy-year-old drummer Alex Van Halen's love letter to his younger brother, Edward (maybe "Ed," but never "Eddie"), written while still mourning his untimely death. In his rough yet sweet voice, Alex recounts the brothers' childhood, first in the Netherlands and then in working-class Pasadena, California, with an itinerant musician father and a very proper Indonesian-born mother—a woman who admonished her boys to "always wear a suit" no matter how famous they became, and who was both proud and practical, nonchalant about taking a doggie bag from a star-studded dinner. He also shares tales of musical politics, infighting, and plenty of bad-boy behavior. But mostly, his is a story of brotherhood, music, and enduring love. "I was with him from day one," Alex writes. "We shared the experience of coming to this country and figuring out how to fit in. We shared a record player, an 800-square-foot house, a mom and dad, and a work ethic. Later, we shared the back of a tour bus, alcoholism, the experience of becoming successful, of becoming fathers and uncles, and of spending more hours in the studio than I've spent doing anything else in this life. We shared a depth of understanding that most people can only hope to achieve in a lifetime." There has never been an accurate account of them or the band, and Alex wants to set the record straight on Edward's life and death.