Listen to Wally Lamb discuss and read from "I Know This Much is
True."
With his stunning debut novel, "She''s Come Undone," Wally Lamb
won the adulation of critics and readers with his mesmerizing tale
of one woman''s painful yet triumphant journey of self-discovery.
Now, this brilliantly talented writer returns with "I Know This
Much is True," a heartbreaking and poignant multigenerational saga
of the reproductive bonds of destruction and the powerful force of
forgiveness. A masterpiece that breathtakingly tells a story of
alienation and connection, power and abuse, devastation and
renewal-- this novel is a contemporary retelling of an ancient
Hindu myth. A proud king must confront his demons to achieve
salvation. "Change yourself," the myth instructs, "and you will
inhabit a renovated world."
"When you''re the same brother of a schizophrenic identical
twin, the tricky thing about saving yourself is the blood it leaves
on your bands-- the little inconvenience of the look-alike corpse
at your feet. And if you''re into both survival of the fittest and
being your brother''s keeper-- if you''ve promised your dying
mother-- then say so long to sleep and hello to the middle of the
night. Grab a book or a beer. Get used to Letterman''s gap-toothed
smile of the absurd, or the view of the bedroom ceiling, or the
influence of random selection. Take it from a godless insomniac.
Take it from the uncrazy twin-- the guy who beat the biochemical
rap."
Dominick Birdsey''s entire life has been compromised and
constricted by anger and fear, by the paranoid schizophrenic twin
brother he both deeply loves and resents, and by the past they
shared with their adoptive father, Ray, a spit-and-polish
ex-Navyman "(the five-foot-six-inch sleeping giant who snoozed
upstairs weekdays in the spare room and built submarines at night),
" and their long-suffering mother, Concettina, a timid woman with a
harelip that made her shy and self-conscious: "She holds a loose
fist to her face to cover her defective mouth-- her perpetual
apology to the world for a birth defect over which she''d had no
control."
Born in the waning moments of 1949 and the opening minutes of
1950, the twins are physical mirror images who grow into separate
yet connected entities: the seemingly strong and protective yet
fearful Dominick, his mother''s watchful "monkey"; and the
seemingly weak and sweet yet noble Thomas, his mother''s gentle
"bunny." From childhood, Dominick fights for both separation and
wholeness-- and ultimately self-protection-- in a house of fear
dominated by Ray, a bully who abuses his power over these stepsons
whose biological father is a mystery. "I was still afraid of his
anger but saw how he punished weakness-- pounced on it. Out of
self-preservation I hid my fear," Dominick confesses. As for
Thomas, "he just never knew how to play defense. He just didn''t
get it."
But Dominick''s talent for survival comes at an enormous cost,
including the breakup of his marriage to the warm, beautiful Dessa,
whom he still loves. And it will be put to the ultimate test when
Thomas, a Bible-spouting zealot, commits an unthinkable act that
threatens the tenuous balance of both his and Dominick''s
lives.
To save himself, Dominick must confront not only the pain of his
past but the dark secrets he has locked deep within himself, and
the sins of his ancestors-- a quest that will lead him beyond the
confines of hisblue-collar New England town to the volcanic
foothills of Sicily ''s Mount Etna, where his ambitious and
vengefully proud grandfather and a namesake Domenico Tempesta, the
"sostegno del famiglia," was born. "Each of the stories Ma told us
about Papa reinforced the message that he was the boss, that he
ruled the roost, that what he said went." Searching for answers,
Dominick turns to the whispers of the dead, to the pages of his
grandfather''s handwritten memoir, "The History of Domenico Onofrio
Tempesta, a Great Man from Humble Beginnings."
Rendered with touches of magic realism, Domenico''s fablelike
tale-- in which monkeys enchant and religious statues weep--
becomes the old man''s confession-- an unwitting legacy of
contrition that reveals the truth''s of Domenico''s life, Dominick
learns that power, wrongly used, defeats the oppressor as well as
the oppressed, and now, picking through the humble shards of his
deconstructed life, he will search for the courage and love to
forgive, to expiate his and his ancestors'' transgressions, and
finally to rebuild himself beyond the haunted shadow of his
twin.
Set against the vivid panoply of twentieth-century America and
filled with richly drawn, memorable characters, this deeply moving
and thoroughly satisfying novel brings to light humanity''s deepest
needs and fears, our aloneness, our desire for love and acceptance,
our struggle to survive at all costs. Joyous, mystical, and
exquisitely written, "I Know This Much is True" is an extraordinary
reading experience that will leave no reader untouched.