Martin

Martin, the narrator’s middle brother, dies in a nighttime car crash while the narrator is living in the United States. His death changes the family’s life and leaves his dog as one of the few surviving connections to the household they had once shared.

Identity and Death

Martin is identified as the narrator’s middle brother. He is riding in the back seat with his girlfriend when their car crashes beneath a truck stopped just beyond a hill. The truck driver has halted in the middle of the night to let two hitchhikers out and has switched off the lights. Martin’s girlfriend dies at the scene; the driver of Martin’s car, his best friend, survives without injury.

The News and Its Immediate Aftermath

The narrator learns of Martin’s death by telephone from his father while living with a host family in the United States. The shock leaves him unable to find the English words to explain what has happened. He reaches for a dictionary and assembles the news one word at a time, first saying that his brother is dead and then identifying the cause as a car accident. The gap between the news and his ability to speak it makes the loss register as both intimate catastrophe and a rupture in language.

Family and Lasting Presence

After Martin’s death, the narrator’s parents continue working and maintain ordinary routines together, but to the narrator their shared meals, television evenings, and walks resemble a simulation of their former life. With the eldest brother away studying in Munich, the narrator remains at home as the only child living with them. Martin’s dog carries a different kind of presence: the narrator’s mother and he recognize that the seriously ill animal connects them to Martin, to the rest of the family, and to a time when they believed themselves unbreakable. The dog’s attachment to that shared past gives Martin’s absence a continuing place in the family home.