http://s2smagazine.com/stories/2011/09/jermaine-speaks-mj-new-book
When siblings grow up together, they often share a very special bond, even if they aren’t the best of friends. Only a brother or sister might remember when you revolted against hand-me-downs or danced to “Sesame Street” songs as if you were competing on “So You Think You Can Dance.”
It’s that kind of intimacy that Jermaine Jackson brings to his book, You Are Not Alone Michael: Through a Brother’s Eyes.
The book offers readers some insight into things that many have questioned for decades: “Why does a grown man have an amusement park in his back yard?” “Did Michael ever have a normal childhood?”
Jermaine explains how the years of deprivation—from things most take for granted, like Christmas trees—resulted in an overindulgence that few understood like Michael’s big brother does.
“There only ever seemed to be lurid judgments about him and his ranch without any attempt to figure out the more complex ‘why?’” Jermaine writes. “As with everyone, his background shaped him. But fame—especially the iconic status attached to my brother—built a public barrier as big as a dam in front of his need to be understood.”
Jermaine also reveals years’ worth of secrets about the family’s affairs, including how interfering wives prompted the hit “You Wanna Be Starting Something,” and how he first learned of his brother’s death.
Jermaine, who seems to be as protective of his brother’s legacy as he was the man, said the book “addresses everything and says the things he never got a chance to say… I ask that you walk in his shoes and then make up your mind.”
