A searing family memoir, hailed as âremarkableâ (The New York Times), âcompellingâ (People), and âengrossingâ (Kirkus Reviews), of a trial lawyerâs tempestuous boyhood in Texas that led to the vicious murder of his brother by the father of actor Woody Harrelson.
In 1968, David Bergâs brother, Alan, was murdered by Charles Harrelson, a notorious hit man and father of Woody Harrelson. Alan was only thirty-one when he disappeared (David was twenty-six) and for more than six months his family did not know what had happened to himâuntil his remains were found in a ditch in Texas. There was an eyewitness to the murder: Charles Harrelsonâs girlfriend, who agreed to testify. For his defense, Harrelson hired Percy Foreman, then the most famous criminal lawyer in America. Despite the overwhelming evidence against him, Harrelson was acquitted.
After burying his brother all those years ago, David Berg rarely talked about him. Yet in 2008 he began to remember and research Alanâs life and death. The result is Run, Brother, Run: part memoirâabout growing up Jewish in 1950s Texas and Arkansasâand part legal story, informed by Bergâs experience as a seasoned lawyer. Writing with cold-eyed grief and a wild, lacerating humor, Berg tells us first about the striving Jewish family that created Alan Berg and set him on a course for self-destruction, and then about the miscarriage of justice when Bergâs murderer was acquitted.
David Berg brings us a painful family history, a portrait of an iconic American place, and a true-crime courtroom murder drama that âelegantly brings to life the rough-and-tumble boomtown that was 1960s-era Houston, and conveys with unflinching force the emotional damage his brotherâs death did to his familyâ (The New York Times).