Book Review-I Know This Much Is True

I Know This Much Is True

by Wally Lamb

I Know This Much Is True is 897 pages long and that's a good thing because this book is a treat to read.  The story is about twins named Dominick and Thomas.  Thomas develops schizophrenia in early adulthood and Dominick is never affected by the disease.  Dominick, the narrator, has to navigate an abusive childhood, trying to care for a mentally ill brother, a divorce and trying to figure out who he is and where he came from.  I could really relate to his efforts to maintain relationships with very imperfect and even abusive people in his family, his struggle to forgive and also move into a healthier life for himself.  

I really like Wally Lamb's down to earth writing style and that attention to the little details of day to day life that he includes in his stories.  He presents his interesting and flawed characters with such care and realism that you want to keep reading about them even after the 897th page is turned.

Here's an excerpt from the book.  This is Dominick's therapist talking to him during one of their sessions:

We had gone over our allotted time, she said.  We had to stop.  "But come here first." She took me by the arm and led me back to the window.

"It is all connected, Dominick," she said.  "Life is not a series of isolated ponds and puddles; life is this river you see below, before you. It flows from the past to the present on its way to the future.  That is not something I have always understood; it is something I have come to a gradual understanding of, through my work as both an anthropologist and a psychologist."

I looked out, again, at the rushing water.

"Life is a river," she repeated.  "Only in the most literal sense are we born the day we leave our mother's womb.  In the larger, truer sense, we are born of the past-connected to its fluidity, both genetically and experientially."