I have a sister!

Tonight, my brother, Neil Howard Doctorow, married Tara Lee Trimble, (now Doctorow). Mazeltov to the two of them, who are achingly, tangibly in love. Congrats and love always, guys. Here's the speech I gave:

And Tara is joining the family, which is not the Doctorow family, nor the Doctorow-Starr family, nor the Doctorow-Starr-Levitt- Cloth-Ceresne-Klayman- Greenfield-Negru- Rochman-Linsday- Goldman-Silver- Fox-West-BenDavid- Halprin family. It's my family, and it's this variegated, global, ramified enterprise whose edges are smeared out and indistinct, so that it's impossiible to tell exactly where it ends.

At events like this one, where we are turned out in our thronged hundreds, I have developed a survival strategy: I bring my dates around and when someone comes up and heartily shakes my hand and marvels at how long it's been, or pinches me -- we're great and cruel pinchers in this family -- and leaves a smudge of lipstick on my cheek, I turn and say, "This is my friend so-and-so," and then, if luck is with me, the familiar face out of my boyhood is joined to a name and a relationship: "Ah, so nice to meet you. I'm Cory's great-aunt's sister-in-law on his mother's father's side, (beat) I knew this one when he wet the bed."

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