⋙ Download Free I Know This Much Is True Oprah Book Club Wally Lamb 9780060987565 Books

I Know This Much Is True Oprah Book Club Wally Lamb 9780060987565 Books

Download As PDF : I Know This Much Is True Oprah Book Club Wally Lamb 9780060987565 Books

I Know This Much Is True Oprah Book Club Wally Lamb 9780060987565 Books

A couple months ago my book club read Wishin' and Hopin' by Wally Lamb. A few of the members raved about his other books, although they found them quite different from his Christmas story. Based on this recommendation, I selected I Know This Much is True and dowloaded it to my Kindle without a second thought.

I read on my iPhone during my lunch hour and started this book with great anticipation. The first chapter is quite gruesome but sets the tone for all that is to come. If you can get yourself through the beginning, I'm pretty sure you can get through the rest. I kept reading. And reading. The percent read that my kindle happily tracks for me, barely moved. Day after day I watched my barely existent progress. When I'd had enough I finally checked the statistics of the book. It has a whopping 982 pages! I will be sucking down the battery on my phone for the next ten years reading the story on a 4 1/2 by 3 inch screen. But I persisted.

Thomas and Dominic are twins, one born on December 31st and the other born on January 1st. They are even born in different decades, one in 1959 and the other in 1960. Their mother, Connie is not married but thank goodness her strict Italian father died before he discovered she was pregnant. The boys are never told who their biological father is and both have an very contentious relationship with Ray, their step father, who adopts them as toddlers.

The brothers are angry. The tone of their story is filled with anger because everyone here has issues. Thomas is mentally ill and finds himself living in a variety of mental institutions. Dominic, the supposedly sane twin, is Thomas' self appointed protector. Dominic's life is a train wreck and he blames Thomas for all that is wrong with him.

There is so much going on here, that Mr. Lamb needed those 982 pages. The story blew up slowly until is became a big abscess and it finally burst, letting the infection run freely out. The story ended all tied up in a neat little bow. I couldn't stop reading this book but I wasn't always engaged in this book. I Know This Much is True requires a commitment of time and energy. The treatment of mental illness in this country is spread out for the reader to live and experience. The story is worth reading but beware. It's exhausting.


Tags : I Know This Much Is True (Oprah's Book Club) [Wally Lamb] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. With his stunning debut novel, <em>She's Come Undone, </em> 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,Wally Lamb,I Know This Much Is True (Oprah's Book Club),HarpPeren,0060987561,General,Schizophrenia - Fiction,Twins - Psychology - Fiction,Reading Group Guide,Fiction,Fiction - General,Fiction General,General & Literary Fiction,Modern fiction,Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)

I Know This Much Is True Oprah Book Club Wally Lamb 9780060987565 Books Reviews

This book turned out to be one of the best books I've read in my entire life, which is a lot to say. Wonderful storyteller. Every single page is a delight and you end up thanking Mr Lamb for having written a long one, because you really don't want it to end ever. It sounds true and real all the time. I found myself falling for Dominic and feeling for him throughout the book. I don't think I'll ever forget it, though I have to confess that I hope I can forget some of it soon so I can read it again. I simply have no words to express how much I liked it.
Over 80 years pondering the intricacies of our identical twinning - including five years of a Freudian analysis and twelve of analytical training, I found the closest answer to the schema of our lives in Wally Lamb's novel. I was spellbound in my journey, amazed by the discovery of the similarity of the denouement of the Birdseye twins story to mine as my sister's twin, and feel enormous gratitude to the author for this unexpected bonus in insight from immersing myself in his remarkable novel. I would be amazed to learn that he is not a twin and could nevertheless create his psychologically astute novel.

Roberta Beckman Gonzalez, M.D.
Excellent literary marvel! I had never read any of Wally Lamb's books before and I just loved this book. Spoiler alert I have worked as a mental health professional and a psychiatric hospital administrator for many years and everything about psychiatric hospitals, group homes, etc., he writes about is so first hand, it is truly amazing. Also, everything he writes about people with schizophrenia is incredibly factual. But, all of this is written from a literary perspective and not like a text book. The novel is really three novels in one. Kudos to a great writer.
Lamb bluntly portrays the daily struggles of those affected by mental health issues; I have a few friends with schizophrenic relatives, and as such this book was a little eerie for me. I kept comparing the novel in my head to Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex, which I adore both are about learning to understand one's heritage and learning to love oneself in spite of (and because of) ancestral ignorance and mistakes. In transporting the reader to Italy, and to the first years of life in America for new immigrants, Lamb points to what truly makes us patriots, what makes us American, and the ways our flaws have become a part of our culture along with our strengths. Although it was written in 1998 and sometimes feels a little dated, it is genuinely startling to read it in 2016 and realize how little has changed since the heady days of the late 1990s. Lamb wrote an American epic that sometimes ties up loose ends a little TOO neatly, creates metaphors that are maybe a little too obvious, and portrays therapy somewhat unrealistically - but it is a great story told by a passionate writer. I recommend.
This book starts off with a horrific incident. Thomas, Dominic's twin brother, enters the public library, takes a large knife, and cuts off his hand. He believes that will draw attention to the Iraq war and stop it. It draws attention, all right, and lands him in an insane asylum. It falls to his brother to help him. Dominic, the 'sane' brother, has had the burden of his disturbed brother all his life.

In the course of this book, we learn about the twins, their Italian immigrant father, the burdens that people carry, and what it means to love one another. Although I felt the ending was just a little too pat, the journey made it worth it.

Wally Lamb has a wonderful gift of empathy for initially unsympathetic characters, and he carries the reader along a voyage of discovery, deeper and deeper into each character, until we share his understanding.

A book worth reading and rereading.
A couple months ago my book club read Wishin' and Hopin' by Wally Lamb. A few of the members raved about his other books, although they found them quite different from his Christmas story. Based on this recommendation, I selected I Know This Much is True and dowloaded it to my without a second thought.

I read on my iPhone during my lunch hour and started this book with great anticipation. The first chapter is quite gruesome but sets the tone for all that is to come. If you can get yourself through the beginning, I'm pretty sure you can get through the rest. I kept reading. And reading. The percent read that my kindle happily tracks for me, barely moved. Day after day I watched my barely existent progress. When I'd had enough I finally checked the statistics of the book. It has a whopping 982 pages! I will be sucking down the battery on my phone for the next ten years reading the story on a 4 1/2 by 3 inch screen. But I persisted.

Thomas and Dominic are twins, one born on December 31st and the other born on January 1st. They are even born in different decades, one in 1959 and the other in 1960. Their mother, Connie is not married but thank goodness her strict Italian father died before he discovered she was pregnant. The boys are never told who their biological father is and both have an very contentious relationship with Ray, their step father, who adopts them as toddlers.

The brothers are angry. The tone of their story is filled with anger because everyone here has issues. Thomas is mentally ill and finds himself living in a variety of mental institutions. Dominic, the supposedly sane twin, is Thomas' self appointed protector. Dominic's life is a train wreck and he blames Thomas for all that is wrong with him.

There is so much going on here, that Mr. Lamb needed those 982 pages. The story blew up slowly until is became a big abscess and it finally burst, letting the infection run freely out. The story ended all tied up in a neat little bow. I couldn't stop reading this book but I wasn't always engaged in this book. I Know This Much is True requires a commitment of time and energy. The treatment of mental illness in this country is spread out for the reader to live and experience. The story is worth reading but beware. It's exhausting.