I Know This Much Is True: A Novel (P.S.)
#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 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. 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.
I Know This Much Is True is a masterfully told story of alienation and connection, power and abuse, devastation and renewal--an unforgettable masterpiece.
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Community Reviews
I've long rattled this book off as a favorite, but I've never actually reviewed it. It's exceptionally difficult to review the books I love. But did I actually love this as much as I remembered?
I'll admit that a couple hundred pages in, I wasn't so sure. I noticed several times little details that really only needed to be told once were repeated, so it seemed like it was an error that they appeared twice (or more) - such as what was written on a gravestone. I started to feel panicky. Was this going to slip from my favorites list? Shouldn't I be feeling something?
This book is a whopper.
This book is a whopper in both size and story. There's a lot to dig through here. It takes a while to get going although I never felt like it was slow nor did I ever lose interest. There is a lot of growth, but much of that is achieved through memories of childhood and early adulthood and through a journal/manuscript written by Dominick's grandfather (who is a real piece o' work). The remainder of the growth is through current day events and therapy (lots and lots of therapy).
The biggest problem with a book this size and with writing so great that you start to truly care about the characters? You don't want to leave it. Or rather you don't want it to leave you. I cried when I finished this. I felt a little abandoned. Like I'm not sure where to place my feelings now. And I don't even care that it was mostly tied together with a pretty little bow. He deserves a pretty little bow, damnit.
Still a favorite and still 5 Stars
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