I Know This Much Is True, Lamb, Wally 1998 900 pgs.
Another family dynamic of twin brothers and the affect they have on one another’s lives and all the supporting background. The characters of Mom and Stepdad are powerful and ring true. The dead Grandfather enters the story and gives a surprising account of the mother’s life from his view. A story within a story.
The following is from the library files and there is much more to read there –
Dominick Birdsey’s entire life has been compromised and constricted by anger and fear, by the paranoid schizophrenic twin brother he both deeply loves and resents, and by the past they shared with their adoptive father, Ray, a spit-and-polish ex-Navy man (the five-foot-six-inch sleeping giant who snoozed upstairs weekdays in the spare room and built submarines at night), and their long-suffering mother, Concettina, a timid woman with a harelip that made her shy and self-conscious: She holds a loose fist to her face to cover her defective mouth–her perpetual apology to the world for a birth defect over which she’d had no control.
Dominick”s talent for survival comes at an enormous cost, including the breakup of his marriage to the warm, beautiful Dessa, whom he still loves. And it will be put to the ultimate test when Thomas, a Bible-spouting zealot, commits an unthinkable act that threatens the tenuous balance of both his and Dominick”s lives.
I would recommend this book 4 1/2 stars out of 5.
Suzanne
