I Know This Much Is True - by Wally Lamb (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

#1 New York Times Bestseller and Oprah Book Club selection

"Thoughtful . . . heart-wrenching . . . . An exercise in soul-baring storytelling--with the soul belonging to 20th-century America itself. It's hard to read and to stop reading, and impossible to forget."--USA Today

Dominick Birdsey, a forty-year-old housepainter living in Three Rivers, Connecticut, finds his subdued life greatly disturbed when his identical twin brother Thomas, a paranoid schizophrenic, commits a shocking act of self-mutilation. Dominick is forced to care for his brother as well as confront the dark family secrets and pain he has buried deep within himself--a journey of the soul that takes him beyond his blue-collar New England town to Sicily's Mount Etna, the birthplace of his grandfather and namesake. Coming to terms with his life and the generational trauma of his lineage, Dominick struggles to find forgiveness and finally rebuild himself beyond the haunted shadow of his troubled twin.

I Know This Much Is True is a masterfully told family saga of alienation and connection, power and abuse, devastation and renewal--an unforgettable masterpiece.

From the Back Cover

"On the afternoon of October 12, 1990, my twin brother, Thomas, entered the Three Rivers, Connecticut, public library, retreated to one of the rear study carrels, and prayed to God the sacrifice he was about to commit would be deemed acceptable. . . "

One of the most acclaimed novels of our time, Wally Lamb's I Know This Much Is True is a story of alienation and connection, devastation and renewal, at once joyous, heartbreaking, poignant, mystical, and powerfully, profoundly human.

Review Quotes

"Never grapples with anything less than life's biggest questions. . . . Lamb clearly aims to be a modern-day Dostoevsky with a pop sensibility." - New York Times Book Review

"Thoughtful . . . heart-wrenching . . . . An exercise in soul-baring storytelling--with the soul belonging to 20th-century America itself. It's hard to read and to stop reading, and impossible to forget." - USA Today

"A gratifying saga of loss and redemption." - People

"[A] tour de force that sweeps the reader along in its swift emotional current....A work of astonishing craftsmanship, structural symmetry, and literary self-awareness . . . Read it and weep." - St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"Dominick Birdsey is an epic hero and his story an inspiring, darkly comic tale of redemption--a late twentieth-century Les Miserables." - Glamour

"A fully developed and triumphantly resolved exploration of one man's suffering and redemption." - Publishers Weekly, starred review

"Lamb details the pain and perversions of generations of dysfunctional families in the struggle between twin brothers at midlife. His craftsmanship and characterizations are exceptional. . . . Fine work, relentless in its effect." - Library Journal

"The saga of the century. Best, most wonderful, most dramatic, most powerful. There are no superlatives impressive enough to describe this, another Lamb masterpiece." - Oakland Press

"Wally Lamb is one of those rare contemporary writers who can produce a 900-page book that defies readers to put it down. . . stunning. . . powerful. . . . The book is so effectively structured that the reader can easily fall into its pages, becoming a part of it, in the way that a powerful play lures its audience into its setting and story line...A rich literary tapestry that is an affirmation of life." - Dallas Morning News

"A can't-put-it-down-novel . . . packed with graceful writing, unrelenting dramatic tension and characters how force the reader to form an emotional bond with them . . .The only thing bad about Wally Lamb's new novel is that it's too good." - Denver Post

"You couldn't ask for a more beguiling summer read." - Entertainment Weekly