I didn’t know until Steve Jobs’ death that he was the brother of writer Mona Simpson. (How did I miss this?)

I love Mona Simpson’s writing. She was featured in Reasons to Believe: New Voices in American Fiction, a book about fresh, young authors back in the ’80s that I read cover to cover, devouring all their words of advice and believing in the dream they set forth. She was part of that crowd we were all reading in college — Lorrie Moore, Jay McInerney, Bret Easton Ellis, Amy Hempel — who we all loved and admired because they were so young and making it so big in the writing world. I loved her first fiction book Anywhere But Here, and it was one of the few books I’ve read twice. The mother really resonated with me, since she reminds me so much of someone in my own life, and I thought the story was beautifully told.

And now I just learned she was the birth sister to Steve Jobs. And then I saw her eulogy for him in The New York Times — also beautifully written. It’s amazing that two people so brilliant could be born into one family, although they never lived together as a family, and even more amazing that they didn’t know each other existed until she was 25. But the story she tells about  how she learned he was her brother, and how close they eventually became, is lovely.

I know I’ve said before that I agree that sometimes truth really is stranger than fiction. But sometimes it’s also more romantic and more loving as well. …

Here’s her eulogy: A Sister’s Eulogy for Steve Jobs.