I Know This Much Is True (Oprah's Book Club)

Book review by Joel
This is an Oprah's Book Club selection. This book was recommended by my friend in Seattle who I still legally can’t mention due to his extensive team of high priced lawyers. He found it in the dumpster. It’s a dumpster book. They’re the best kind.

This is the story of identical twins, and how different their lives are. One is schizophrenic and cannot take care of himself while the other one feels overly responsible for his brother and the whole world.

Dominick is the narrator and the sane brother. His is the story of Job who had to endure the trials and tribulations of God to prove his faith. And a lot of trials go Dominick’s way through this book. His brother Thomas went into a public library and cut his hand off to protest the Gulf War. He was out of a halfway house on his own recognizance when he did it. After getting out of the hospital, he was committed to a maximum-security mental institution. Dominick tries to get him out but can’t and ends up befriending the psychiatrists in charge of his brother. He also ends up getting some much-needed counseling of his own.

Through a series of flashbacks and a short bio written by his grandfather, we learn all about the family and circumstances of what led up to this event. It is truly a page-turner. It is a long novel, but it is very readable. I was done with it before I wanted to be.

I was not thrilled with the ending but true to the Job parable, Dominick is redeemed in the end. It was a bit Hollywood for me but it wasn’t contrived. It was a natural progression.

Well worth a read.

Joel.

Book review by Tracey
I know Joel has already reviewed this selection, but my next door neighbors gave it to me as a gift at Christmas, and I can’t say enough good things about it. The main character, Dominick, is a fascinating study. The other characters are also very interesting, but it is what Dominick does and thinks while interacting with the others that I found most enlightening. Dominick feels responsible for protecting and caring for his twin brother, who is a paranoid schizophrenic. Anyone who has been any kind of caregiver for any length of time at all will definitely identify with him. His anger, his feelings of helplessness, his fear of developing the disease, and even his embarrassment and the subsequent guilt we feel about it are a familiar themes to many.

This is a multi-layered story. Dominick’s family members and friends are for the most part pretty fleshed out. They seem like real people. People you’d meet anywhere. When you feel that your family is the only dysfunctional one around, and that everyone else has a “normal” one, read this book again. It will probably make you feel better about yourself AND your family! Interestingly enough, in doing some spring cleaning in my library, I found another Wally Lamb book titled She's Come Undone (Oprah's Book Club). Guess I’ll be checking that one out soon.

Tracey.