Contemporary Literary Criticism | The Brothers Quay - Terrence Rafferty (essay date June 1987)

The Brothers Quay on the influence of their family background:

What if we said we [were] born of a heavily tainted family, neurasthenic, microcephalic, each with one atrophied testicle, a sly liking for geese, chickens, etc., pigtails in pillowcases, suffer from dry tongues, overly predisposed towards music and abandoned organ lofts, blah, blah, blah. No, we grew up sweating with obedience. Our Father was a 2nd class machinist for Philadelphia Electric, our mother your impeccable housewife (who was a figure skater before marriage). On our Father's side there were two grandfathers: one a tailor from Berlin who had a shop in South...