Family
Storms' Great Great Grandfather came to the US in the 1880s from Cuba. He worked as a reader in a cigar factory in Ybor City, but left after his boss disproved of the material he was reading to the other workers. He then ran a bolita lottery for a local gang. The game was supposed to be fixed, and the gang killed him when he made a mistake in the scheme.
Serge was named after his grandfather Sergio, a con artist who shared some of his grandson's passion for historical trivia. Serigo also seemed to share Serge's sense of ethics, as one of his last major cons involved swindling money from investor who themselves swindled the residents of a farming community in Alabama. Sergio was thought to have committed suicide when Serge was a child, but during the novel Cadillac Beach it's discovered that he is still alive. The elder Storms had a heart attack not long after his grandson's 44th birthday, and died after a short stay in hospital.
Storms' father Pablo was a Cuban American jai alai player who was more popular for his unpredictability than his skill at the sport; he died when he hurled a pelota that rebounded and struck him forcefully in the head. This occurred when Serge was very young, and left his mother a widowed single mother. She had an affair with another jai alai player from Spain, which resulted in pregnancy. Since she could barely cope with one child, and had no support from the father (he went back to Spain), she gave up her second son for adoption.
Ford Oelman is Serge's half-brother, the child given up for adoption by his mother. Oelman was raised in Alabama, and did not find out about the adoption until he was an adult. He was reunited with Sergio when the older man was in Alabama, but did not meet with Serge until after their grandfather had died. Ford moved to California with his friend Mark to fulfill his ambition of becoming a screen writer.
Read more about this topic: Serge A. Storms
Famous quotes containing the word family:
“At best the family teaches the finest things human beings can learn from one another—generosity and love. But it is also, all too often, where we learn nasty things like hate, rage and shame.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (20th century)
“Our civility, England determines the style of, inasmuch as England is the strongest of the family of existing nations, and as we are the expansion of that people. It is that of a trading nation; it is a shopkeeping civility. The English lord is a retired shopkeeper, and has the prejudices and timidities of that profession.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“If it had not been for storytelling, the black family would not have survived. It was the responsibility of the Uncle Remus types to transfer philosophies, attitudes, values, and advice, by way of storytelling using creatures in the woods as symbols.”
—Jackie Torrence (b. 1944)