„ - Jūs skrupulingai stengiatės suinventorinti visas kančias ir neteisybes, kurias patyrėte iš kitų. Galima jus vadinti kruopščiu koroneriu.“

4/5

Skrodimo stalas. Ir skalpelis Wally Lamb rankoje. Ant stalo čia telpa kur kas daugiau, nei galvoji, kol nepradedi analizuoti. Broliai ir tėvai, seneliai ir patėviai, alkoholikai ir išdavikai, kareiviai ir psichiatrai, religiniai fanatikai ir šventieji, Amerika ir indėnai, mirę ir mirštantys viduje. Knyga skaitosi stebėtinai lengvai ir greitai – jei reikėtų lyginti, sakyčiau, kad beveik Irvingiškai. Tik autorius sau leidžia kur kas mažiau nei pastarasis – atsitraukia, nesikiša, dažnai atrodo, kad čia jo visai nėra. Tik kalba ir kalba, o visa knyga kaip ilgas psichoterapijos seansas – praeitis ir ateitis, dabartis ir atmintis pinasi į tokį mazgą, mainosi vietomis kaip įgudusio mago rankose – prireiks atidumo, kad atpažintum, kur prasideda viena ir baigiasi kita. Jau senokai neskaičiau taip smulkmeniškai išanalizuotų veikėjų portretų – Lamb skalpeliu rėžia taip giliai, kad vietomis net pabosta. Ypač jo noras įtraukti knygą knygoje – tikriausiai pagrindinė priežastis, kodėl romanas 4*, ne 5*.

Vienas iš pagrindinių mano priekaištų – dramatiškumas. Nepasakytum jokiu būdu, kad čia nieko nevyksta, bet knyga man kelia panašią emociją, kaip žinau, jog daugeliui kėlė Mažas gyvenimas – tiek kančios, kad po kiek laiko beveik atbunki. Tiek skausmo, toks jų cunamis, kad pavargsti kapstytis ir beveik nebenori galvos laikyti paviršiuje – kokia prasmė? Tuoj užgrius dar viena. Nes tikrai – viską, ką blogiausio gali sugalvoti, W.Lamb sugrūda į vienos šeimos gyvenimus. Nevardinsiu, nenorėdama sugadinti skaitymo malonumo, bet beveik galima susidaryti siaubo bingo, o skaitant braukyti – didelė tikimybė, kad didžiausi ir baisiausi jūsų baubai čia vienu ar kitu pavidalu tikrai pakels galvas. Po kiek laiko man tiesiog nebeveikė. Ir laikausi nuomonės, kad knygai nebuvo reikalo išsitęsti į 900 puslapių – tiesą sakant, nesu sutikusi tokios, kuriai reikėtų. Ties 700 jau pajaučiau poreikį greičiau užbaigti – net kai įdomu, net kai autoriaus talentas nepaneigiamas, net kai veikėjai gąsdinančiai tikri. Natūraliai nebeturėjau emocijų, kurias dar galėjau šitam romanui skirti. Bet skaityti vis tiek rekomenduoju – puikiai suprasiu visus, kuriems kris prie metų geriausiųjų. Man ne taip wow, bet vis tiek romanas didis įvairiomis prasmėmis. Kažkada bandysiu susikaupti ir serialui.

People keep griping about the F word. It's just a word. i'm more bothered while trying to re-read this book by-
Wrong narrator syndrome. I really want to get into Thomas's head more. Both Domenicos are just not interesting. Who wants to hear about their grandfather? That guy is such a jerk. He's driving me crazy. Who wants to read about someone thinking he's all that, a bag of chips and a value meal?

Another thing is the dialogue is driving me crazy. The characters are just too simplistic. They don't really have a whole lot of facades to them.

Now to continue tormenting myself.

Dude, first of all WE KNOW THE GUY IS ITALIAN SO WHY ALL THE ITALIAN? Second, WHY MUST YOU CRAM EVERY SINGLE TRAGEDY YOU CAN INTO ONE BOOK?!

The actual review:

Dang, this book frustrated me. So I took away its stars. It's just like with She's Come Undone. Oprah rants about it, most people love it, but it's full of-
Stereotypes. Every character is a stereotype. The lesbians, the Indian from India doctor, the Black Power/Native Power part black part Native character, the DON'T YOU DARE BE A SISSY stepfather, the long suffering mother.
I just don't think real people are LIKE this, this simplistic and cardboard!

The book suffers from Wrong Narrator Syndrome. Dominick isn't as interesting as his brother, but we get his point of view, then we get to read about his asshole grandfather! He was such a hateful and unsympathetic, dickhole of a character that it was just so unpleasant to read about him. He was full of himself. He was proud to treat the people close to him like steaming dog crap. Why did we even need so MUCH of him anyway?

As I said above, Lamb has to cram every single tragedy in this book he can think of. You have to have mental illness, rape, abuse, more abuse, racism, AIDS, suicide, killing a monkey and then he's got to add even more of that! It's like you are in a boxing ring being punched over and over and not getting a break from all the mega-misery! Same thing with She's Come Undone! Stuff besides rape and abuse happens to people!
It's contrived, it's cringe-worthy. I will not read any more of this poxy writer! People are out of their minds if they think adult books are better than children's books JUST because have adult protagonists. I've read young adult books that tackled these subjects a hell of a lot better.

I finished it last night and it's good to be done. I enjoyed it overall, but it had a lot of potential that Lamb pretty much squandered, IMO. I mean no disrespect to the author, I'm just being honest. It's all I can be. There were some themes (such as mental illness and genuine forgiveness) that felt underdeveloped and sadly lacking.


Additionally, much of the final moments were neatly wrapped up, contrived, and very much reminds me of your typical Hollywood ending. And don't get me started on Thomas's death and the fact that it serves no purpose whatsoever (except maybe Dominick's need to grieve and self-discovery.) It was like everything they'd done thus far was all in vain. I suspect the author felt it wise to throw in a plot twist, and not a very convincing one at that. Which brings me to my next point: I felt nothing for Thomas's passing. Having read roughly 3/4 of the novel and gotten a firm grasp of his character, you'd think I would have felt some form of melancholy, or sympathy at the very least, but I felt nothing. I think the phrase emotional detachment described my reaction quite well.



My most damning critique, however, revolves around Dominick and Thomas's grandfather's LONG and TEDIOUS autobiographical chapters. I mean, why is this even here? And why must Lamb torture his readers with chapter after chapter of his arrogant life views and experiences? I'm not exaggerating when I tell you this, either, but they take up approximately 200 boring pages. And the guy's been dead for 40 years!! Earnestly, I can kind of understand why they're included, but they could have been summarized in a maybe a dozen pages, with the same desired result.




I am interested in some of Lamb's other work, but reading I Know This Much Is True isn't making me particularly anxious to pick them up any time soon.

Read halfway, but just got bogged down in the endless trials and tribulations of the MC's life.

The subject is real; the topic important. Schizophrenia and how it tears apart not just the person who has it - his or her life - but so many around him. And not confined to just family, friends, coworkers, health professionals. This is the story of identical twin brothers, one who develops the condition (disease) and the other who does not. However, the main focus here is on the one who does NOT.

Set in two timelines: past, when the twins are young - as kids and teenagers, then the early 90's...


Dominick and Thomas are twins, born to a single mother, living in a hellhole existence with a stepfather (Ray) who has zero empathy or awareness of the harm he does by constantly berating, belittling and beating the boys. (He torments both, but Thomas gets the worst treatment.) Ray is a colossal jerk/tyrant in the household, as shown in several graphic scenes where he terrorizes the twins for minor infractions - like eating NECCO wafers in church - always saving the worse for Thomas. But still, despite scenes where the adult Thomas is incarcerated, mistreated, or has heart-rending episodes of delusion and paranoia, the book is mostly about the Dominick.

And Dominick alone could have his own book without the brother. He has a wife he loves who leaves him. A baby daughter who dies of SIDS. An abused mother with a cleft lip who struggles with spousal abuse and does next to nothing to help her sons when they're being abused. And from childhood on, he's in a constant struggle to help his brother, Thomas, who he only barely understands. (Though sometimes he just stands by and let's Thomas get bullied, etc. Later he has to deal with all the guilt.) It's a nightmare world for Dominick which never lets up, which never ends, and even when things are looking a (little) better...

Dominick is a house painter - he was a teacher but loses his job when he breaks down in class. Anyhow, as he's taking shutters off a third-floor window, he watches the man inside shoot himself in the head. Of course. Then Dominick falls off the ladder, breaks a lot of bones, misses an important meeting which will determine the course of his brother's future treatment - and oh, did I leave out that earlier Thomas cut his hand off in a public library as he feels this will avert a war in the Middle East? Well poor Dominick doesn't take that very well either! Nah, there's just TOO MUCH HERE.

I got dizzy reading this.

Let me also add that Dominick entrusts his grandfather's hand-written autobiography (for translation from Italian) to a woman who runs off with it. That his current girlfriend, Joy - ironic name - gets pregnant by someone else and tries to pass it off as Dominick's. (She deserts Dominick, too, running off with the baby's father. Her subplot borders on the absurd: she invites the baby's father to hide in a closet and watch her and Dominick have sex.) Let me see, what else?

Dominick has a friend, Leo, who is one of the biggest jerks to ever live in a book. Why Dominick just doesn't DUMP the guy, I don't know. (Funny how so often characters in books have these truly terrible friends and KEEP them. I'm looking at you, 'Goldfinch.') And to top it all off, adult Dominick stays 'friendly' with the stepfather who made his childhood a living hell for him and his brother. There are also scenes where Dominick is getting some help - therapy-wise - but fights constantly with those who are trying to help. Just goes on and on ...



It's endless. I've often had trouble with books with never-ending scenes of degradation, despair, defeat, depression. It just piles on and on and yes, I've had some issues in my life, too. And I'm a real person, not a character in a book but I just couldn't...

Read...

Anymore.

Three stars, for catching my attention, some excellent writing, but the endless pain and suffering? Too much!

100/100

I think I'm actually gonna make a video about this but for now, just know that no book has ever made me feel or cry as much as this book has. It is a beautiful and tragic saga of brotherhood, love and death, grief, heartbreak, and everything in between. I'm sure reading this while I'm in a really shitty spot mentally probably made it mean a whole lot more to me in my ultra-sensitive emotional state, but for now, it's on the very short list of 100/100 books for me, and will classify itself as an all time favorite, and one I'll come back to many times throughout my life

In the first few chapters I would have given this a 5. Interesting plot, but way too long and ridiculous. The plot twists got more and more far-fetched. A page-turner--have to give it that--but by the 500th page (there are 900+) I started skipping around (too many fragmented stories everywhere, between the flashbacks and the entire journal of the narrator's grandfather) just to find out what was going to happen, without all the extra details. The interaction among characters was intriguing, but it got to the point where many were downright unlikable/unbelievable, thanks to their outrageous/disgusting actions.

Slightly overlong in places, and a hopelessly cheesy final two chapters, but generally an excellent book.

Probably the best book I have read this year, certainly the one I enjoyed the most. Utterly wonderful.

Wally Lamb's second novel, I Know This Much Is True, was probably a result of the success of his first effort - She's Come Undone, which was selected by Oprah for her book club four years after its initial publication in 1992. His sophomore effort, published in 1998, also got stamped with Oprah's round seal - this can be considered either a blessing or a curse, but one thing is certain: it helps to gain readership, and a lot of it. Oprah is acknowledged for that, and is thanked for her help in the acknowledgments section - albeit among dozens of other people Lamb deemed important, from his publisher and through his teachers students. Even the morning crew at the Sugar Shack Bakery gets a shout out. I guess the bakery had to be acknowledged, as anyone writing such a long novel is sure to get the munchies every now and then.

I Know This Much Is True is the story of two identical twin brothers - Dominick and Thomas. Born minutes apart, but in different decades - the dusk of 1949 and dawn of 1950 - the Birdsey brothers are physical reflections of one another, but develop distinctly different identities: Dominick is bold and aggressive, while Thomas is meek and mild - and develops paranoid schizophrenia. Set in the fictional small town of Three Rivers in Connecticut (which is based on Lamb's hometown of Norwich is the same state), the novel opens with Thomas being admitted to the state psychiatric hospital's maximum security ward after he committed an act of horrible self-harm in the local library, convicted that it will stop the Gulf War from happening (the book opens in October of 1990). What follows is a lenghty family saga, narrated by Dominick, who fights for his brother's sanity - and his own.

What follows is a sweeping saga of the past and present, narrated mostly in the first person by Dominick, who equally protects and despises his minimally younger, paranoid brother. Given the fact that both are in their 40's at the beginning, flashbacks are used liberally to keep the plot moving and suspense in its proper place. There's also a story within a story - Dominick's mother gives him his grandfather's memoir as a gift, which conveniently contains his history as a determined Italian immigrant, and which then is presented alternately with Dominick's first person narration when the flashback material runs out. The New York Times Book review stated that "Lamb clearly aims to be a modern-day Dostoyevsky with a pop sensibility", so the novel contains a whole lot of digressions into various fields: psychology, religion, consumerism, treatment of Native Americans, life in contemporary United States and its foreign policy. But the focus is less on Dostoevsky and more on the pop, and although the digressions are many they are rarely deep and can be swallowed down in one gulp.

Dominick is an unlikable narrator who comes out as perpetually angry and irritated, and from his flashbacks it's clear that he's kind of an asshole. When Dominick meets Thomas's psychiatrist, Dr. Patel, in order to stop his transfer - which he rightly thinks will only further his paranoia - he becomes her patient himself and undergoes a psychoanalysis of sorts. To resolve his own conflicts Dominick must confront his own past, Dr. Patel encourages, which is a neat way of setting the stage for some flashback material from the 50's all the way to the present. These therapeutic sessions with Dr. Patel help the readers warm up to Dominick as they marvel at the horrorshow which Wally Lamb prepared for him, including but not limited to: a father he never knew, an abusive stepfather and a mother who he felt loved the other child more, cross-dressing with a smell of incest (in the attic), sibling cruelty, substance abuse, child pornography, rape and dead babies - luckily there's no rape of dead babies, but at this point I would not be too surprised. It's no wonder adult Dominick turned out to be at best a conflicted individual, and also leads a life which can be described as relatively grim and unpleasant - not really enjoying his job, feeling angry towards the wife who divorced him and trying to make up for the loss by getting it on with a hot gym instructor (who has her own seedy past), while still feeling responsible for his brother - now a grown man, but with a brain full of classic paranoid delusions. He loves Thomas and hates him, at the same time. Sympatheric might be a too strong of a word - Dominick's angry voice becomes understandable. His account becomes compelling and draws one in, and like spectactors at a trainwreck it's difficult to try to stop looking. There's a great scene where young Dominick reminisces how he realized that he and his brother are not the same person, and I felt that that's where their trouble began - they were not the same and one wished that they were, while the other did not.

Approxmately 3/4 through the novel, at the moment when Wally Lamb had my attention he felt the need to make Dominick read his grandfather's memoir - which got lost and then conveniently found just at the right moment. The memoir is written by "Domenico Tempesta, a man of humble beginnings" and is a story of self-success written by the man himself - for posterity. Immediately it becomes obvious that Domenico the elder was an enormous ass who desired only success and did not mind leaving his mother in the Old Country to pursue success in America - at any cost. Domininck hates this man, and it's difficult not to share his contempt for the man who is determined to get what he wants and desires - no matter what would be its price.
The huge problem with the memoir section is that - aside from being an enormous and lenghty act of narrative exposition, which could just as well have been only alluded to and summarized on a few pages instead of continuing to go on for around two hundred - it's that it's almost ridiculously bad. A large part of that is intentional and explained - elderly Domenico was full of delusions of grandeur, and Dominick had to get the thing translated from Italian - and was told that large parts were written in distinctly Sicilian dialect, and left untranslated for lack of English equivalent and also emphasis of authenticity. But the parody screams intentional from the first sentence, and has nothing of the melifluous nature of the Italian language in its style - the only Italian thing about it are the untranslated and italicized words, which are words any human can at least guess the meaning of - unless you haven't seen The Godfather and have no clue what Omerta might mean and did not know that zuppa is a cousin of soup, but even if I don't think anyone will have a problem with the bambino's and signora's of which there are plenty (I think Lamb spares us Domenico talking about the pizza).

But the funniest thing lies in the details. In elderly Domenico's memoir one of the characters is called Ciccolina, ans is "a bowlegged old butcher-woman burdened with a hunchback and breasts that hung from her like a big sacks of semolina". Sad sight, isn't it? But if you'll add just one "i", you'll find yourself looking at a Cicciolina. Doesn't ring a bell? Prepare for an interesting trivia. Cicciolina is the stage name of Ilona Staller, who was born in 1952 and is arguably Italy's best known adult film actress - her fame spread (now that's a word) across the continent, and here in Poland her name became a slangword for a big-breasted female (although it has fallen out of use - or perhaps I've grown up, though I still found it impossible not to make this connection, so perhaps I did not). Aside from having a career in adult entertainment, Cicciolina also entered the world of politics - starting in 1979 as a candidate for Lista del Sole, Italy's Green Party. In 1985 she switched to Parto Radicale, the Italian Radical Party, and was elected to the Italian Parliament in 1987, serving there till the end of her term in 1991, after which she was not reelected. She was famous for not moving away from her career and continuing to produce hardcore porn while serving in the parliament, and delivering political speeches with one breasts exposed. When journalists asked her if she is not concerned about her actions undermining her credibility, she said: "My breasts have never done anyone any harm, while bin Laden's war has caused thousands of victims". She was, of course, damn right.
In 1991, a year after Thomas in the book-world mutiliates himself to stop the Gulf War, Cicciolina also offered to make a sacrifice to stop the war - she offered to give herself to Saddam Hussein "in exchange for world peace" (Saddam did not accept). She renewed her offer in the tumultuous 2002, when Iraq was being suspected of possessing weapons of mass destruction, saying: "I would do it holding my nose and closing my eyes. I would do it for peace". Again, Saddam did not accept - and the situation escalated into another war. In 2006, she offered to give herself to Osama Bin Laden in return for him giving up terrorism. "It is time someone did something about Bin Laden, and I am ready to do it. I am ready to make a deal", she said: "he can have me in exchange for an end to his tyranny". She accurately pointed out that Bin Laden could learn from Hussein's mistakes - but he too did not take Cicciolina up on her offer, and troops kept coming. One might think that with recent polls showing the famous Silvio Berlusconi being tied with other candidates for the Italian PM, he will indeed win the office and La Cicciolina will come out of retirement, once again selflessly promoting peace and humanitarian efforts for the world which could certainly use more love.

But I digress. Even with the memoir's hopelessly bad narrative (which even Dominick dreads reading, although it's his grandpa's history) the main storyline moves smoothly and contains a few emotional bombs, which continue to keep falling on poor Dominick - it's like eating from a pack of chips: we know that the stuff is essentially bad for us and that for every chip there's a whole lot of air, and that our fingers get greasy - but we keep reaching in nonetheless, and crunching the smooth bastards down till they're gone. Munch munch munch munch! But then, as the novel nears the end, everything goes horribly wrong and it almost made me drop the rating to two stars instead of three. Here's what happens:

Everything gets resolved! Every loose end gets tied in the most incredibly unlikely way possible. I can understand an author feeling sympathy for the characters whom he had given a rough life and wanting them to feel peace, if only at the end, but this string of coincidences working in their favor is ridiculous. Not only the old bastard Ray gets his redemption by planting the tulips - after all this time? Always! - he also gets his leg amputated to get a good dose of sympathy. But the sudden character reversal and even the manipulation is not bad. Even Dominick learning the real identity of his father is not bad - but the identity of his father is. It turns out that Dominick is the cousin of Ralph Drinkwater, the indian kid - which in itself wouldn't be so terribly trashy, if Ralph did not just start to benefit from being a Wequonnoc Indian, and being a part of the thriving casino enterprise. Life sucked for Ralph for so long, and at the end he happens to be on the winning side - and it just so happens that Dominick is also in for the ride, and immediately embraces his newly found Wequonnoc ancestry (and the benefits). To make it worse, Dominick gets back with Dessa, the wife who left him after she lost the baby and he ot a vasectomy without telling her - she conveniently broke up with whatshisname, who was described by Dominick as a good guy, for no reason other than to set her up to get back with Dominick - which she does, and it just so happens that Dominick's previous girlfriend, the young and troubled Joy, not only became a mother but also got diagnosed with HIV and Dominick just so happens to be the only person in the world that she trusts to take care of her baby in case she passes away - which she does. Granted, it takes a couple years and she did try to convince Dominick that he is the father of her baby before - which he wasn't for obvious reasons - but it just so happens that the baby happens to be a little angel and hits it off with Dessa, just happening to be the child she and Dominick lacked. By this time I was reasonably sure that Jesus himself would descend from Heavens above and resurect Thomas, thank him for his service and give him back his life and sanity - or rapture a few people before blowing the planet up, or just blow it up anyway because I sure as hell didn't care what happened. Where is Annie Wilkes when you need her? He didn't get out of the COCKADOODIE CAR!)

To sum up: I Know This Much Is True is an overly long novel, with two interesting main characters who cover for the rest of the cast, providing reasonable entertainment without testing the waters too much, but crumbling almost completely in the third act, all of its impact positively evaporating and leaving its readers in wonder at how the author managed to mess up so badly with something so full of promise. Instead of being a memorable work of fiction which I hoped it would be, it was a long and often entertaining but ultimately disappointing novel. I was eyeing Lamb's recent novel, The Hour I First Believed, but the reaction seems to be mixed. It does sound interesting (I was very interested in the Columbine shooting) - but so did this one, and while I do not regret reading it its flaws make me less eager to read more works by Wally Lamb.

Wow.
I've read this book during a particular time of turmoil in my life and it was just what I needed, I think. The book is a journey through the life of Dominick Birdsey, a 40 year old housepainter who has pretty much reached near bottom in his satisfaction with his life. He is the twin brother of Thomas Birdsey, a schizophrenic who just cut off his right hand in a public library to protest Gulf War I. The book goes through Dominick's past, starting from his fucked up childhood under his unbelievably cruel stepdad and his trials of both protecting his mom & brother and trying to come of age himself, up thru his teenage + college years, to the collapse of his marriage to a beautiful woman he's still in love with during the present time of the book. But it also goes into detail about his family before he was even born, when Dominick is handed a manuscript that his grandfather who he'd never met dictating his life story as an Italian immigrant coming to the US at the turn of the century. Overall, it's a wonderful satisfying book of how a person's past shapes who they are. And it's perfect for any Joe Schmoe who feels that life has handed them a bad deal a lot of the time. It's heartbreaking a lot of the time, nd uproarously funny when it needs to be. This was an Oprah Book Club book, and there's footage on the internet of the author discussing it. I guess he's only written one other book called She's Come Undone. I can't wait to read it.

$1.99 Kindle special today! This was a GREAT PAGE TURNING STORY!!!!
Just sayin. :).
I’d buy it for $1.99 ... but I already own it.
Sometimes a reader is simply looking for a stay to lose yourself in. This book fits that need.


This was another on of those 5 star books that I guess I never rated!

I wasn't always active on Goodreads you know --
There was a time I read before this site....lol

I'm glad I finally finished because it was one of those books I kept thinking about when I was in the middle of it and I had trouble getting things done until I knew what would happen. I really enjoyed it, I think it's hard to write a book with such a complex story line which all ends up coming together neatly in the end. Like some how even the mysticism and twists weren't over done and felt like they flowed nicely. I think this is one of my favorites now honestly.