“The word ‘home’ raised a smile in us all three,

And one repeated it, smiling just so

That all knew what he meant and none would say.” – Edward Thomas

Did everyone actually know what he meant, or could it be everyone thought they knew and didn’t want to articulate it? Trying to say what you think you know is a good way of learning whether you really know it. Can we ever return home once we’ve left? Is home a reality that can be returned to? I remember talking to a woman about the conflict she risked in her native country. She was glad to be away from it all, but she also longed to return there. That’s where her home was.

Home is where we fit in, but some of us are so dogged by internal or external pain that we don’t actually fit in anywhere with a clean snap. We just hold our place well enough; we appear to flow with the rest of the pattern. Is home where our family is? If so, who is our family? That’s as big a question as the definition of home. Both are subjects in John Michael Cummings’ new dramatic novel, Don’t Forget Me, Bro (Stephen F. Austin State University Press, Dec. 2014).

The story is told by Mark Barr, who returns to his Alma, West Virginia, home after receiving the call that his eldest brother, Steve, has died. Steve was declared mentally ill many years ago, and no one in the family seems to know how to deal with him. He died at age 45. At one point, he was a runner with aspirations of living a long, creative life.

“Forty-five was for car accident victims and the terminally ill,” Mark says. “Steve would be so ashamed. I was glad he wasn’t alive to know he was dead.”

But Mark hadn’t talked to his brother for years before they spoke on the phone last week, and he hasn’t kept up with his other brother or their parents. It has been 11 years since he last visited, and he felt the same today as he did back then—he wanted to get out. Alma and the surrounding mountains were haunted with ugly memories of choices Mark had made and experiences he’d suffered. If this was the place where he fit in, he hated the picture it made.

“All around me,” Mark drones, “mountains were streaked brown like stained commodes, and skeleton-shell barns flashed by, as if retreating. In that moment, I felt that this land had never stopped waiting for me to return, that like an enemy, it had me for life.”

Cummings sustains a good tension throughout this family drama. Even though I didn’t like any of the main characters, I became curious enough to want to see how things panned out. One reason for my curiosity may be an overall weakness. We learn early on that Mark has unresolved issues to discuss with his live-in girlfriend back in New York City, but we don’t learn how bad they are until the middle of the book. At another point, he says he has never been asked certain questions about himself, and I wonder if he has and simply doesn’t remember. As details of Mark’s personality and life unfold, I wonder if he is a reliable narrator. Will we learn in the closing chapters that half of the story comes from Mark’s twisted imagination?

Add to this curiosity a definite plot weakness. Mark arrives at his mother’s worn-out house and soon learns his belligerent, catholic father plans to cremate his brother’s body and avoid holding a funeral. When Mark talked to Steve a few days ago, Steve had asked to be buried next to his grandfather in the church cemetery. Through all the questions and arguments that rise among the Barr family, Steve’s dying wish to be buried is Mark’s driving passion. Should he challenge the cremation legally? Shouldn’t his brother be honored in a better way than being burned up and urned up? Some fuel is thrown on this fire by Mark beginning to question whether Steve was actually mentally ill. If he wasn’t, has the family sustained unimaginable abuse on him for 20 or more years?

But even if Steve hadn’t been ill and had been abused by everyone for years, why is Mark so adamant about having him buried? He hasn’t cared enough to call him for years. Why should he care now, or (as I said before) does he really care? Is this the mad fixation of a narrator who twists the world through his own unique kaleidoscope?

John Cummings’ first novel, The Night I Freed John Brown, won The Paterson Prize for Books for Young Readers (Grades 7-12) and was one of ten recommendations by USA TODAY. Don’t Forget Me, Bro will be released in December.