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Blue Genes: A Memoir of Loss and Survival | 
 enlarge | Author: Christopher Lukas
Publisher: Doubleday
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $10.95
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Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 45115
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 272
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.8 x 1
ISBN: 0385525206
Dewey Decimal Number: 616.85270092
EAN: 9780385525206
ASIN: 0385525206
Publication Date: September 16, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Tony and I are brothers across the stroboscopic echoes of the past: dissolving across black interludes into the next image, and the next, and the next, until all vestige of pure vision is destroyed. All that is left is memory, and we know how faulty that can be. Who Tony was is forever blurred by who I was and how I remember who I thought Tony was . . . He is dead, and I am alive—left to dwell on questions, and to seek the answers . . .
Would I, too, end up killing myself? Was the legacy of self-destruction I would discover in my family too great for me to survive? If so, when would the pendulum swing? And, if it never did, why not? How could I—almost alone among my family—escape?
—From Blue Genes This courageous, engrossing memoir explores the complex and shattering effects of a family legacy of depression and suicide on the author and his brother, the award-winning journalist, J. Anthony Lukas.
Christopher (Kit) Lukas’s mother committed suicide when he was a boy. He and his brother, Tony, were not told how she died. No one spoke of the family’s history of depression and bipolar disorder. The legacy of guilt and grief haunted Kit and Tony throughout their lives.
Both brothers achieved remarkable success, Tony as a gifted journalist, Kit as an accomplished television producer and director. After suffering bouts of depression, Kit was able to confront his family’s troubled past, drawing on his experience to write Silent Grief, an invaluable guide to surviving a loved one’s suicide. Tony forged a sterling career, eventually winning two Pulitzer Prizes, including one for the now-classic book Common Ground. But he never seemed to find the contentment Kit had attained; he remained creative, but depressed. In 1997, shortly before the publication of his acclaimed book, Big Trouble, Tony Lukas committed suicide.
Blue Genes portrays the lives of two brothers who alternately locked horns and found solace in each other. Written with heartrending candor, it captures the devastation of this family legacy of depression, but it is also surprisingly uplifting, as it details the strength and hope that can provide a way of escaping its grasp.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
 Blue Genes October 29, 2008
John L. Goodman MD
Any reader of Blue Genes will learn about the power of family dynamics, biological contributions to one'e destiny, the helpful role of good psychotherapy, the importance of sharing one's thoughts (as the author has shared himself with the reader) and not keeping secrets, the role of work and love in getting through and enjoying life, and the possibility of triumphing over tremendous psychological and biological obstacles.
There Was Dust on the Man in the Long Black Coat October 2, 2008
Lightman (New York)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
As I was reading this book I was thinking about these lyrics from a song by Bob Dylan.
This is a book about death.
Or is it a book about life?
Christopher Lukas has written "a memoir of loss and survival".
Indeed. So I guess it's about both death and life. And the shadows that death casts over the living...
In the aftermath of the suicide of his brother (Pulitzer Prize winning journalist J. Anthony Lukas), the author chronicles a family history that also includes the suicides of his grandmother, mother and uncle, the alcoholism and depression of his father, and ultimately the death of his wife to whom the book is dedicated.
It's about abandonment, loss, guilt, and the pain of being left behind. And about dark secrets, things unspoken but undeniable, brokenness, depression, and yes, death.
Other reviewers have noted that the book and its characters are difficult to connect with. This is to some extent true. As Lukas writes, "The first thing that occurs when a person gets fatal news is emotional shock, blocking out the catastrophic events and feelings". It seems to me that the author's trauma is so great that his survival has required him to somehow remain at a distance, and this can be unnerving for the reader.
Anyway, I give it a conditional recommendation. The perspective it provides of a human condition bereft of the warmth that most consider "normal" is valuable and instructive.
One caution: don't confuse this book with the similarly titled Blue Genes by Paul Meier. That one just stinks.
 This book wasn't for me. September 30, 2008
Monica Garcia (Arlington, Texas USA)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Late one night Christopher (Kit) Lukas received a phone call with news that his brother, the gifted journalist J. Anthony Lukas, had committed suicide. Tragically their mother also committed suicide when they were young boys. Kit and his brother were never told how she died and no one spoke of the family's history of depression and bipolar disorder. The legacy of guilt and grief haunted Kit and Tony throughout their lives.
Despite both brothers achieving remarkable success, Tony as a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, they suffered bouts of depression. Kit was able to confront his family's troubled past and find happiness but Tony remained depressed which ultimately led him to take his own life.
Being that this book was a memoir I just couldn't connect with any of the characters. It may have helped if I was familiar with Tony's writing or felt some sort of connection to the brothers but the writing just didn't pull me in. I feel this was more personal for Kit than a story that needed to be shared. I can see where the book might be helpful for anyone who has been affected by a loved one's suicide but it just didn't click for me.
A great deal of loss, but not a great deal of hope. September 23, 2008
cait (N.J., United States)
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
To the world, the Lukas brothers appeared successful and accomplished. Older brother Tony was a Harvard graduate, a NY Times journalist, winner of two Pulitzer Prizes. The author Christopher, or Kit as he is know, is an actor, author, Emmy award winning TV producer, husband and father.
But when Kit received that call one night that his brother had killed himself, while terribly upset, he was hardly surprised. It appeared to be just one more example of a terrible family legacy of mental illness, depression and suicide.
Their mother cut her own throat when they were just boys, they watched their father decline into alcoholism, and their grandmother, their aunt and their uncle all died at their own hands.
"Blue Genes" is an attempt by Mr. Lukas to come to some understanding of this family history and especially to come to terms with his brother's death.
"I am sure that I never answered the question of why Tony killed himself to the satisfaction of my interlocutors. It was almost impossible to do so. There is a parallel question that I have been more successful answering: why I have not killed myself....
Still with full confidence, I know that I will never go into a room at the end of the day and kill myself. Too many deaths in my family, too many suicides. I will not follow suit."
The problem is, we are not really given the evidence in this book to make us totally believe this. The evidence not to fear, even for the fate of the author's daughters. Have they too inherited the family legacy?
I hope that the author accomplished what he wanted to in writing this book, in terms of coming to some sort of peace with his brother's death. But as he admits, he remains unable to explain it to us. And I hope that he is right about being lucky enough to have been blessed with the support and knowledge to enable him to escape the fate of so many in his family. The book is subtitled " A Memoir of Loss and Survival"...unfortunately, there is a great deal about the loss and not enough, except for an attempt in the four page epilogue, about the survival, to make it ultimately a hopeful book in my mind.
 Honest and Moving September 22, 2008
Johanna C. Wood
This is a moving account of Mr. Lukas' family experiences with depression. What is most interesting is that he is coming out of a generation where treatment for mental illness was primitive and not very effective. His losses because of that tragic fact are at times overwhelming. When I reached the end of the book I felt that it was a miracle that Mr. Lukas was still alive considering the history he has lived through! I wanted to say to him, "You are extraordinary and accepted and valued exactly for who you are!" His examination has a flavor of psychoanalysis - how have events played themselves out in relationship to his earliest experiences as a boy. Overall, a moving picture of one man's attempt to understand his family relationships.
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