Sam Farhi's writing in The Sapsuckers is hard and cracked as the bark of a North American White Oak, but the liquor that flows inside is clear and sweet. Peter is the young narrator trying to sound detached and adult, but under every word is his tender mourning for his older brother, Rem, who left him too soon. Only a younger brother could love and admire his older brother like that. This book does something only a few great novels have accomplished: to make every word mean two opposite things-two rival emotions-at once; to make every word count, double.