I absolutely loved this book and cried my eyes out during the last 60 pages. This book was an experience! So much has been written about this book how much can I add?

For me the emotional complexity and intensity of the story instantly pulled me in and relentlessly riveted my attention through the 897 pages. But the intensity of my emotions was extremely mixed and volatile. By page 250 I wanted to abandon the book altogether as I encountered some powerful emotional reactions to rape, child abuse, heinous domestic violence and SIDS. So many bad things happened to so many people in this story! By page 480 I was an emotional wreck and at times had trouble physically touching the book. The first 480 pages of this book were depressing! Thankfully I was poked and prodded along by my Goodreads reading partner and stuck with it. The turning point for me occurred specifically on pages 483-484 – a green, spring shoot of hope and humanity and by page 859 redemption, reconciliation and forgiveness. The first half of the book was such an arduous journey but the second half and conclusion was well worth the mental angst.

The concepts of forgiveness and redemption are critically significant and are woven into the tale with increasing intensity and clarity as the book moves to its conclusion. Could you forgive the college man who angrily rapes his girlfriend in the back seat of her car? Could you forgive the father that mentally and physically abuses your children? Could you forgive a cousin who conspires to set you up for a crime you did not commit? Could you forgive the husband that rapes his wife because she is "his"? Could you forgive the brother who can be mean and abusive to his twin brother ... the twin brother who suffers from paranoid schizophrenia? Would the context of their past lives provide the leeway and latitude necessary for you to forgive their terrible abuses and transgressions? This book tackles some very difficult relationship issues and so much more. These questions and situations fueled my moral dilemmas, emotional entanglements and quandaries as I read the book, creating such intense angst and tension for me.

Truth be told, I was very intimidated by the length of the book. I have not read an 800+ page book since my college days over 30 years ago! And the little economist voice in my head repeated over and over - the law of diminishing returns, the law of diminishing returns, law of diminishing returns. Could I apply this economic law to a literary work? Was it necessary to capture infinitesimally minute, incremental details of each character to build the story? Yes indeed it was! All 897 pages of this book were absolutely necessary to fully elucidate and explore the storyline.

My very first Wally Lamb adventure was She’s Come Undone, a wonderful read with a central hero figure in Delores Price. This book was equally satisfying and accomplished but I could not identify any hero figures in this read. What I did experience was deeper understanding and empathy for the human condition, the emotional complexity of the human mind and how in the end, generally we all strive to do what is right given our assumptions and perceptions at the time.

I highly recommend this book and would rate it a 5+++ if I could. But do be prepared for a very thought provoking, emotionally stimulating and fully satisfying adventure!

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.

If I had an All-Time-Favorites shelf, this book would definitely be on it! Wally Lamb's I Know This Much Is True has addictive characters and is beautifully written with so much depth and feeling with absolutely no boring parts to detract from the story. The only bad thing about reading this book was wondering how the hell the next one will ever measure up! I loved the ending and truly wish it wasn't over!

If you have not read this wonderful novel, you are really missing out, and do not let the 928 pages put you off as they will just zip on by. POWERFUL! UNPUTDOWNABLE! UNFORGETTABLE!

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

This book is recommended for drama lovers. It’s a full plate with plenty of second helpings.

Triggers: mental illness, emotional and physical abuse (including rape), animal cruelty, sexism, religion...

I had this book sitting on my shelf since its release (1998!). I have some older books waiting for my attention and that is something that does not bother me. Seriously. I feel some comfort knowing that a certain book is at my reach.
But I’m so glad that I have finally decided to read it. I don’t think that I would have appreciated this book back then (1998), as much as I have right now.
What pleased me the most was the author’s writing style. I was totally absorbed from the beginning. It’s absolutely engaging. The structure is brilliant.
This is a very heartbreaking story, but not one that I would call depressing.
There is so much drama and sadness but the writing is superb. The dialogues are great.
On the last 5 or 3 pages of chapter 35 there is a small scene involving animal cruelty that I thought was not necessary. It added nothing more to that particular character. As for myself, I can’t stand animal cruelty, no matter how small a scene is, so I was very disappointed about it. Regardless, it did not diminish my whole impression of this book and I do think that this is a terrific work of fiction, and perhaps one of the best books that I’ve read.
Again, this is full of dramas. There isn’t a break of joy until the very end. But the writing is so good that the amount of sadness did not bother me.
I do have a twin brother, but we are fraternal, so I did feel some connection at some level.
I’m looking forward to watching the HBO adaptation, but I have heard that they changed the ending but I hope that they were faithful to the book.
I was very pleased with the conclusion of this book and I had to holdback my tears as I was reading in public.

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.

This book could have been about 500 pages shorter. In addition to constantly repeating himself, as though you may have forgotten the relevant lessons, or stories, or who the characters are from 100 pages back, the writing is painfully slow... until the last 15 pages when life moves at lightening speed and everything gets wrapped up with a big shiny bow by a sentence or two saying how everything worked out for all of the characters for the best over the last several years. Lamb's female characters are also distressingly uni-dimensional and flat. It's tempting to say that this is because it's the main character's voice, but Lamb spends enough time in a voice outside of the this character to do better than that. Add She's Come Undone to this, and it's clear that he just doesn't write women well at all. Lamb also attempts a story within a story (grandpa's memoir) that sort of magically takes on the same voice and perspective as the main character's, despite the italics and different font to tell you that the speaker is a different person. How could this have won so many awards? Lamb has butchered an interesting story concept with poorly executed, predictable, repetitive, and trite writing. Editors and author fell down on this one. I'm officially done with Lamb. Skip it.

I HATED this book! I couldn't finish it, that's how much I hated it. The main character for me was so obnoxious and just overall not a pleasant guy. I could handle that, though... until I got to chapter 20, and I apologize if this is a spoiler but this is the chapter where the main character ends up raping his then girlfriend and his future wife/ex-wife (the book jumps between the past and present). I could not get past so many things from that encounter, here are a few: one being that she ends up forgiving him and then ends up marrying him (granted she does leave him later on (hence the ex-wife part), two being the way he ends up reacting to the situation, it was all about him and his needs and he ends up getting pissed at her for accusing him of raping her - well he did! I was conflicted about wanting to finish this book, too because I'm intrigued about the psychological aspects of the story, but I just could not reason reading, and finishing, a book that made me so angry, so I decided to just stop reading it at the end of chapter 20 and move on.

Knyga tiek daug talpinanti savyje. Mano akimis pagrindinė tema- kaltė ir pareiga. Šeimos, giminės, kraujo ryšio netgi religines, biblijinės kaltės ir kaip su ja gyventi. Kur atsakomybė tarsi prakeiksmas spaudžia ir nėra kaip jos išvengti. Apie brolišką ryšį ir savęs supratimą kaip atskiro žmogaus ne tik vieno iš dvynių. Ką daryti kai tavo antroji pusė “sulūžusi”? Kaip gyventi kai pats vienas negali tiesiog egzistuoti, o brolis labai stipriai serga psichine liga? Knyga labai taikliai aprašanti šizofreniją ir kaip ji paveikia visus aplink esančius. Sąmokslo teaorijas ir kaip jos gimsta sergančiojo galvoje. Ar nėra taip, kad tavo antroji kraujo pusė suvalgys tave iš vidaus? Gal tu esi kaltas dėl jo būsenos? O galbūt tu esi tas “brokuotasis” nors iš išorės ir taip neatrodo?
Mažas spoileris, bet jis yra ant knygos nugarėlės ir realiai knygos pirmame puslapyje. Vieną 1990ųjų dieną šizofrenija sergantis Tomas ateina į biblioteką ir pasimeldęs nusipjauna sau ranką tarsi auką taikai. Čia prasideda Dominiko ir Tomos šeimos epopėja sekanti kelių dešimtmečiū ir kartų gyvenimu. Dominikas piktas, toks biški homofobas, biški rasistas, karšto būdo. Tikras tikras žmogus, o ne knyginis personažas. Visas jo gyvenimas įtakotas brolio ligos. Tomas patenka į sistemos prarają ir uždaromas ne į įprastą ligoninę kur visada buvo patalpinamas po epizodų, o į šalies griežčiausią psichiatrinę/kalėjimą. Ar savęs sužalojimas gali virsti nusikaltimu prieš valstybę? Ar įmanoma ištraukti Tomą iš šitos prarajos? Ta tokia beprasmė kova su Amerikos sistema ir biurokratija
Knyga susideda iš daug dalių, bet ji labai vientisa ir nėra fragmentiška. Atsiskleidžia dvynių vaikystė smurtinėje aplinkoje. Ar įmanomam nuo to išsivaduoti ir atleisti kaltininkams? Dominiko sugriuvusi santuoka, gedulas dėl praradimų, niekur nevedantys pakaitiniai santykiai su dabartine mergina. Antroje dalyje veiksmas nusikelia į 20ojo amžiaus pradžia kur sužinome šeimos šaknis ir kaip jų senelis atkeliavo iš Italijos į Ameriką
Man labiausiai palietę skyriai yra kur Dominikas kalbasi su savo psichoterapeute ir bando prisikasti prie savo pykčio ir kaltės šaknų
Labai įdomuus religinis aspektas ir kaip tai svarbu knygoje, ypač Tomui. Taip pat knyga puikus laikmečio atspindys, politinis kontekstas. Persijos įlankos karai, sovietų sąjungos griūtis, Berlyno siena, AIDS epidemija. Viskas persipina su asmenine šeimos drama
Neprailgo nei puslapis, tiesiog suvalgiau. Galėjo ir dar ilgiau būti. Pabaiga tokia reikšminga ir viską gražiai užbaigianti. Rekomenduoju imti nieko nelaukiant, nebijokit apimties.
Pagal ją pastatytas HBO mini serialas su nuostabiuoju Mark Ruffalo kuris vienas vaidina abu brolius, gavęs nemažai apdovanojimų.
Kadangi visada stengiuos įdėti muziką prie knygos, šį kartą iš serialo soundtracko. Beach house “On the sea”https://youtu.be/0qz0IJXQ720

I first read this book shortly after it came out 22 years ago. I’m a little shocked at how little I remember—I basically just remembered the main idea, which is that identical twin brothers grow up and one, Thomas, is diagnosed with schizophrenia. The other, Dominick, has a different kind of mental anguish that he expresses with anger. His anger and fear comes from always protecting his twin while also wanting Thomas to figure out how to defend himself against verbal assault from their stepfather and the kids at school when they were younger, before the diagnosis.

Both his anger and Thomas’s deterioration have led to unsavory results. The novel starts with Thomas going to a public library and chopping off his hand, but we’re told the story in a way that bounces around with time, including the manuscript left by their grandfather, who died a few months before the twins were born—Dominick has always wanted to know who his father was, but his mother went to her grave without telling him.

As a way to help Thomas, Dominick starts seeing Dr. Patel, a psychiatrist with a degree in anthropology, and he befriends Ms. Sheffer, a social worker in charge of Thomas’s case.

This is a very well-done novel. Our protagonist, Dominick, is flawed and has made and continues to make mistakes, but you’re definitely rooting for him to get better.

Ufta. Well...it's a testament to the quality of this book that I was willing to stick it out the entire 900 pages (well, 856, but who's counting?) If you can get past the intimidating bulk and stick it through to the end, there really is some quality writing here that is well worth the time it takes to read.

The plot centers around Dominick Birdsey, the "sane" counterpart to his schizophrenic and paranoid identical twin, Thomas. Most of the novel is dedicated to Dominick acting as an advocate for his brother: Thomas has been admitted to a high security forensic institute and Dominick fights to have him removed while at the same time struggling with his own personal battles. The last third of the book is also a foray into the past as Dominick (and the reader) explores his grandfather's written history and discovers perhaps more than he would have liked to have known about his ancestors.

The author's strong points include well-rounded and extremely interesting characters, a terrific ability to make everything come full circle thematically, and a good ear for dialogue. I can forgive the small bits of mysticism here and there because I felt they weren't there simply for artsiness or filler, but rather to develop character and move the plot along.

I will say that I thought the ending was too "wrapped up." He spelled every little thing out, tied up every single loose end, made everything resolve itself in a nice little package. But I was so invested in the other 840+ pages that it was the characters and their quirks and their heartbreaks and their conflicts, not the ending, that stuck with me.

Wow, what a fantastic book. I read the last 550 pages of this book in one day, disregarding the myriad other things I was supposed to get done. Excellent writing -- every time I thought I knew what was going to happen next (and hoping it didn't, because that would be too predictable) he threw in a curveball or two. The ending actually seemed a little too happy for the rest of the book, but had it ended any other way I might've wanted to jump off a bridge.

Parts of the book were so brutally human that they were difficult to get through, but difficult in the kind of way that wrenches your heart and connects you even deeper to the story. I will be thinking about this book for weeks to come...this is what good writing is supposed to be.