I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb

As an avid follower of the oprah s book club , I happened to pick up this mammoth of a book which oprah suggested as a good read , and believe you me she was right , As a reader I am biased towards non fiction , I love facts ,but this was a fiction book which took me by surprise . Brilliant is an understatement , I happened to read this book many years back , it refuses to leave my memory even till today as it was such a profound book .

I know this much is true by Wally Lamb is a heartbreaking and poignant book which speaks of bonds of brotherhood. The story is about a young man called Dominick Birdsey, the protagonist has lost his mother ,his little girl child when she was only about 3 weeks old, his wife left him , he has no career and he needs to take care of his identical twin brother who happens to be a paranoid schizophrenic . The book follows him through his struggles, his heartbreaks, his meltdown, his resentments and his battle to do the right things. He is forced to not only fight his own inner demons but to also fight his brother s imaginary demons. Also he is forced to face the entire cavalcade of nightmares which haunts the Birdsey clan . The book focuses on Dominick struggle to define himself apart from his twin, his mother and step-father, the loss of his wife and baby, and his unknown biological father.

To give an insight into what Dominick is dealing with 'I'll just rip it off again,' my brother warned. 'Do you think a few stitches are going to keep me from doing what I have to do? I have a pact with the Lord God Almighty' '' This is when Dominick decides not to have his brother s hand reattached. The novel is very graphic and it s definitely not for the faint hearted. It is very disturbing in every true sense of the word.

About the death of his 3-week-old daughter, Dominick says: ''Life didn't have to make sense, I'd concluded: that was the big joke. Get it? You could have a brother who stuck metal clips in his hair to deflect enemy signals from Cuba, and a biological father who, in 33 years, had never shown his face, and a baby dead in her bassinet . . . and none of it meant a . . . thing. Life was a whoopee cushion, a chair yanked away just as you were having a seat. What was that old Army song? We're here because we're here because we're here because we're here.'

Heart wrenching is all I can say , I take a lot away from this book especially from the above stanza .To me this book is a masterpiece , it s in my personal list of Best Books of all time . It s a 912 pages book to be precise, but the journey lasts a life time.

Truly one of the best reads ever.