A review by bandkh1
I Know This Much Is True, by Wally Lamb
5.0
What a surprise this whopping great book was in that, not once in it's 900+ pages was this reader bored for one single minute. Originally, I felt intimidated by this books size but, once I started reading it, I couldn't put it down. This huge book has three major plot lines involving secrets and silence, and deals with such serious issues as mental illness, relationship breakdown, rape, harmful secrets and lies but the story belongs to the protagonist, Dominick Birdsey.
The novel’s strength lies in Wally Lamb’s complex portrait of this private man, permanently scarred by his stepfather’s brutality, the responsibility he feels for his mother and increasingly erratic, mentally ill brother, and a divorce from Dessa, the woman he still loves. This book has real heart and offers a compassionate treatment of the intimate relationship between twins, survival of the death of a twin, and the heartache of living with a schizophrenic loved one. I loved it. What more can I say except, don't be put off by it's size. It's worth every aching arm muscle.
The novel’s strength lies in Wally Lamb’s complex portrait of this private man, permanently scarred by his stepfather’s brutality, the responsibility he feels for his mother and increasingly erratic, mentally ill brother, and a divorce from Dessa, the woman he still loves. This book has real heart and offers a compassionate treatment of the intimate relationship between twins, survival of the death of a twin, and the heartache of living with a schizophrenic loved one. I loved it. What more can I say except, don't be put off by it's size. It's worth every aching arm muscle.