EXCERPT: Jermaine Jackson's 'You Are Not Alone'
Sept. 13, 2011 -- Jermaine Jackson stood by in the shadow of his younger brother, pop icon Michael Jackson, for years, performing behind him as part of the "Jackson Five" and seeing the singer through his struggles with addiction, court battles and paralyzing fame.
In his new book, "You Are Not Alone: Michael, Through a Brother's Eyes," Jermaine, older than Michael by four years, offers a raw portrait of his brother as just Michael, not "the King of Pop," as he was known to the world.
One of the book's more shocking claims includes details from Jermaine of his own elaborate plan to kidnap his brother out of the U.S. rather than see the singer jailed if he was convicted at his 2005 child abuse trial.
The book, published this week, includes Jermaine's explanation of what drove him to devise the scenario: "If they were going to sit and crucify my brother for something that he didn't do, America deserves us not to come back here."
Michael, who died in June 2009 at 50 after an overdose of the anesthetic propofol, remained unaware of the plan as he was found not guilty of all charges in June 2005 at the end of a four-month trial.
Read an excerpt from "You Are Not Alone" below, then check out some other books in the "GMA" library.
CHAPTER ONE
Eternal Child
Michael was standing beside me —I was about 8, he was barely 4—with his elbows on the sill and his chin resting in his hands. We were looking into the dark from our bedroom window as the snow fell on Christmas Eve, leaving us both in awe. It was coming down so thick and fast that our neighborhood seemed beneath some heavenly pillow fight, each floating feather captured in the clear haze of one streetlight. The three homes opposite were bedecked in mostly multicolored bulbs, but one particular family, the Whites, had decorated their whole place with clear lights, complete with a Santa on the lawn and glowing-nosed reindeers. They had white lights trimming the roof, lining the pathway and festooned in the windows, blinking on and off, framing the fullest tree we had seen.
We observed all this from inside a home with no tree, no lights, no nothing. Our tiny house, on the corner of Jackson Street and 23rd Avenue, was the only one without decoration. We felt it was the only one in Gary, Indiana, but Mother assured us that, no, there were other homes and other Jehovah's Witnesses who did not celebrate Christmas, like Mrs. Macon's family two streets up. But that knowledge did nothing to clear our confusion: we could see something that made us feel good, yet we were told it wasn't good for us. Christmas wasn't God's will: it was commercialism. In the run-up to December 25 we felt as if we were witnessing an event to which we were not invited, and yet we still felt its forbidden spirit.
