I Know This Much Is True

Jun 01, 2009 | No Comments | @andrewmarcec

The Birdsey brothers have always been inseparable, whether they like it or not.  They were born identical twins…but that is where all the similarities end between the two.  Dominick Birdsey is a divorcee, house painter, and all around average guy.  His brother Thomas is not, he’s a schizophrenic who believes that he was sent by God to stop the Persian Gulf war.  Their mother is a harelipped, God-fearing woman who’s time has been cut drastically short by cancer, and their step-father is an unsympathetic workaholic who doesn’t understand the family he’s inherited.  Set in Connecticut, this book chronicles the life of a man who is stricken with the burden of playing “brother’s keeper” as he watches his brother slowly succumb to schizophrenia.

Told through incredibly detailed characters, flashbacks, and a dead man’s life story, Dominick scours the depths of what it is for him to be human.  He confronts people he’s wronged in the past, and eventually, owns up to the mistakes that he made.  As Dominick battles with himself, and with societal stigmas of his brother’s conditions, he finds out the importance of family, how just how precious life really is.

Wally Lamb has painstakingly created such hauntingly tormented characters that are so believable your day will be affected depending on which chapter you are on.  I Know This Much Is True has won several awards including “Best Novel of the Year” by the Friend of the Library USA, the Kenneth Johnson Memorial Book Award, was a #1 New York Times Bestseller, and is also on Oprah’s Book club.  This book is deserving of all of these awards and more.  His two other books She’s Come Undone, and The Hour I First Believed can be found at every major bookseller.

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