I Know This Much Is True

The point of view, the colloquial style, the brutal light in which Lamb paints Dominick's life -- as the identical twin who is not the schizophrenic, as the survivor of abuse, as a parent that lost a child to SIDS -- is awesome. It's not a difficult read, but it can be really gut wrenching at times.

HOWEVER. It all works out. In the last couple of chapters, everything is made right and the good guy wins. I got so angry. Sure, not everything is perfect, but it is much closer than it would ever be in reality. That's what really got me -- this book did such a good job of slicing though the gritty reality and then BAM! we have resolution on all counts, healing is happening left, right, and center, and everything is just hunky-dory.

Whatever.

This is technically a fantasy novel BTW. Fight me


Also a really really good novel. It wasn't nessesarely a page turner for me, but the character work was really excellent, and it wrapped up phenomenally. Wally Lamb clearly has earned his success as a writer.

8.8

Dominick Birdsey doesn't know who he is. His identity has been concealed by family secrets and buried under his own anger and arrogance. Dominick believes he has to be tough and has to take what life gives to him. His anger and arrogance pushes those he loves farther away from him just when he needs them most. It is only when his life spins out of control that he finally condescends to embark on a path of self-discovery.

At some point in the book, a character talks about how the books we read reflect ourselves. We're really looking for glimpses of ourselves when we read. I love how recursive this simple observation is. Here I am, the reader, being told how I am looking for myself in this book that is about a character looking for himself and, of course, it is all true.

Wally Lamb beats the shit out of his protagonists. He achieves dramatic tension by dumping so much crap on to the shoulders of his characters that the reader can't help but wonder when the character will implode. Dominick Birdsey stands at ground zero in this book. Mr Lamb drops anvil after anvil on to this man. When he's not dropping anvils, he's dropping pianos. I don't think I'm giving away any spoilers when I list some the challenges Mr. Lamb creates for Mr. Birdsey like this: shizophrenic identical twin, abusive step-father, secretive passive-aggressive mother, adulterous spouse, HIV positive girlfriend, suicidal patron...the list goes on. All of these trials and tragedies ring with truth. These are the things that, if we haven't been challenged by them ourselves, we know someone who has. This makes "I Know This Much Is True" feel like a manifesto of our generation and our class. We're all in this thing together.

There is a brilliant story within a story in this novel. Mr. Lamb exploits this secondary plot to its full potential. He uses Dominick's Grandfather's autobiography to create narrative parallels. Dominick sees his reflection in his Grandfather's story and it isn't very pretty.

Wally Lamb is thoroughly American. He is adamant about setting his novels in our very real and shared history. The first Iraq war figures prominently in "I Know This Much Is True". In fact, he uses America's wars as a kind of time keeping device. Dominick's stepfather served in both Korea and Vietnam. Other historical incidents pop-up in the book too. For example, the death of Eric Clapton's son exposes Dominick's wife's maternal yearning.

I'm from Connecticut. Been here all my life so, it is with not a little pride that I point out Wally Lamb sets his books in Connecticut. It can be distracting for a guy like me (e.g.; "hmmm, what mental institution is on route 158"?) but I love it all the same. Among those historic landmarks Mr. Lamb uses are the federal recognition of our local native american tribes and the subsequent building of their casinos. He captures the rippling changes those events had (and have) on our community brilliantly.

Wally Lamb's books are firmly rooted in the truth. He is capturing the trials, tribulations and tragedies of our generation...of the last five or six generations, really. I couldn't give "I Know This Much Is True" a higher recommendation.

another book that was like a sucker-punch to the gut. even with 900+ pages, i didn't want this one to end, though it ended beautifully. cried again at this one, which is rare. and it contains one of my favorite written sentences. i didn't care if it is an oprah book. i loved "she's come undone," but this book is leagues better.

I found this book immensely frustrating. The concept was beautifully set up, the emotions felt real and true, and certain passages were among the best written that I've ever read. And yet, Wally Lamb insisted on adding in extras - extra plot lines, extra characters - that detracted from the core story that was so, so good.

The basic setup is simple but allows so much room for Lamb to explore complex relationships and emotions. Twin brothers, Dominic and Thomas, grow up with their subjugated mother and abusive step-father. As Thomas slips into paranoid schizophrenia, Dominic is plagued with guilt for being the one to survive their childhood relatively unscathed and confusion over how to treat his once abusive step-father, who becomes a far more sympathetic figure as he ages. Lamb's exploration of all the relationships involved in this scenario was near perfect.

It was almost as if Lamb felt this story on its own wasn't meaningful enough. Partway through the novel, various other elements (a diseased ex-girlfriend, another set of twins struck by disaster, a grandfather's biography) are introduced and as a reader, you almost feel betrayed because the story in which you were so invested starts to feel contrived and disjointed.

I would liked to have given this novel five stars for keeping me engrossed and interested right through, but the excessive detail in sections and the desire to tie up all the loose ends into a happy ending sort of moved it into the Nicholas Sparks category for me - 4 stars would suffice.

Right from the opening chapter when the sweet-hearted but mentally troubled twin Thomas mutilates himself in a public library, this book grabs you with its cast of quirky characters: a mother with a harelip, a bullying stepfather, a self-aggrandizing grandfather, a sexually predatory translator, a surly Wequonnoc native, and Dominic the angry twin who is also the narrator, and a host of others. Everyone keeps secrets, some destructive when finally revealed. The incidents are equally unusual: a decapitation of Biblical proportions, an exploding TV set, Grandpa Domenico’s fantastical life story, the whodunnit search for the real father of the Birdsey Twins. Then there are the syrupy, Nicholas Sparks moments: a girlfriend suffering from AIDS, a mother dying of cancer, tragic falls off rooftops, drowning deaths, SIDS, suicides by waterfalls, tear-jerking moments of atonement between characters. It appears that Lamb took all the elements that are considered necessary for a bestseller and dumped them into this book, and it took him 900 pages to accomplish that.

The central conflict is the anger in Dominic Birdsey, tired of being his schizophrenic brother’s keeper from the day they were born. Dominic hungers for his mother’s affection which she showers on the vulnerable Thomas instead. Dominic tries to stand up to his bullying stepfather, Ray, to protect Thomas, and is not always successful; the scars the twins endure from Ray spill into adulthood. Dominic tries to protect Thomas while the latter is incarcerated in mental institutions, again not always successfully. When he finally springs Thomas from the Hatch correctional centre, Thomas does not repay him as expected. Dominic’s anger also ruins his relationships; with his wife Dessa, with his girlfriend Joy, with Ray; only his friend and brother-in-law Leo, himself a colourful character who fancies himself a Hollywood actor but is only a humble car salesman, sticks by Dominic through the ups and downs. Lamb re-incarnates the same conflicts in each generation: mysoginy, betrayal, secrecy, sibling rivalry and mental illness. Dominic, the stronger and healthier twin, begins to come apart at the seams and submits to the help of a psychologist, Dr, Patel, in trying to unravel his convoluted family burden. I found the sessions with Dr. Patel were too long, almost as if I was sitting in real sessions with my psychologist.

Three story lines weave in and out of the narrative: the early life of the Birdseys from 1950 - 69 culminating in Thomas’s diagnosis of schizophrenia, 1990 and beyond beginning when Thomas self-mutilates in the library, and the autobiography of Grandpa Domenico Tempesta that Dominic is reading in dribs and drabs in the attempt to unravel who his real father is. I felt that given the book’s voluminous length, we could have ended when Domenico’s story concluded, leaving us with a hint of who the twins’ real father could have been, but Lamb went for certainty and for tying up the loose ends, and so we plodded along for another 60 pages. Given the setting, and the last half of the 20th century in America being covered, it appears that Lamb used quite a bit of autobiographical detail to plumb deep into this dysfunctional family story.

Having finished the book, I sat back and reflected on what its central messages were: that success comes after plunging through trial, that secrets destroy relationships, that love surfaces no matter how hard we try to submerge it, that the sins of the fathers and grandfathers are poignant signposts for us in life, no matter how dastardly they were, and that anger needs to be sublimated. The title seems to emphasize that Lamb wanted us to learn these lessons, because he knew them to be true.

I would recommend this book to anyone looking for an engaging but long read. The writing is alternatively witty, sad, agonizing and rich in detail, and the voices are distinct.

Wow! This was a really great book. Very complex characters touching on many aspects of the human condition (living as an identical twin, schizophrenia, depression, adoption, death, love and a whole host of others.) While the topics covered in this book can be at times very heavy, I think it is an accurate portrayal of the emotions people deal with in their lives about which they don't speak. It's quite a lengthy book, but one I was rather eager to finish.

What a masterpiece!Dominick and Thomas' story, their own ways to survive the contradictions and the irony of life.I loved the simplicity,the closeness, laughed and cried for Dominick and I rejoiced in his redemption.The best novel this year, for sure!