Snopes, Brother of Mink

In The Mansion Mink Snopes tells the prison warden that Montgomery Ward Snopes is "my brother's grandson" (99). This is the only reference to Mink's brother in the fictions, and chronologically the possibility that a brother of Mink would have a grandchild Montgomery Ward's age is unlikely. Ratliff asks Montgomery Ward if Mink is his "cousin or uncle" (71); Montgomery refuses to answer, but in his own narrative chapter he refers to Mink as "Uncle Mink" (103). We are entering this man as a "character created by another character," but ultimately he may be one of the many loose ends among the tangled Snopes family lines.