Flashbacks illuminate the boys' difficult childhoods: illegitimate, they never knew their father diffident, gentle Thomas was verbally and physically abused by their bullying stepfather, who also terrorized their ineffectual mother. The book opens with a horrific scene in which Thomas slices off his right hand, declaring it a sacrifice demanded by God. Narrator Dominick Birdsey, once a high-school history teacher and now, at 40, a housepainter in upstate Connecticut, relates the process that led to his twin Thomas's schizophrenic paranoia and the resulting chaos in both their lives. The narrative explores the theme of sibling responsibility, depicting the moral and emotional conundrum of an identical twin whose love for his afflicted brother is mixed with resentment, bitterness and guilt. But thanks to well-sustained dramatic tension, funky gallows humor and some shocking surprises, this sinuous story of one family's dark secrets and recurring patterns of behavior largely succeeds in its ambitious reach. The topics it unflinchingly explores-mental illness, dysfunctional families, domestic abuse-are rendered with unsparing candor. Some may be daunted by its length, its seemingly obsessive inclusion of background details and its many digressions. This much is true for sure: Lamb's second novel (after the bestselling, Oprah-selected She's Come Undone) is a hefty read. I Know This Much Is True is a masterfully told story of alienation and connection, power and abuse, devastation and renewal-an unforgettable masterpiece. Coming to terms with his life and lineage, Dominick struggles to find forgiveness and finally rebuild himself beyond the haunted shadow of his troubled twin. Dominick is forced to care for his brother as well as confront dark 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. It's hard to read and to stop reading, and impossible to forget.' - USA Todayĭominick 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. An exercise in soul-baring storytelling-with the soul belonging to 20th-century America itself.

#1 New York Times Bestseller and Oprah Book Club selection

Author of i know this much is true