I Know This Much Is True: A Novel

Wally Lamb

Mar 2009 · Sold by Harper Collins

4.7

63 reviews

Ebook

928

Pages

Eligible

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About this ebook

#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.

Ratings and reviews

4.7

63 reviews

Cory Adams

May 28, 2021

This was the book that made me fall in love with the writing of Wally Lamb. Abolutely intriguing characters that stick with you long after the story is finished. A heart wrenching, astonishing story of one man's trials and tribulations in a life that seemed stacked against him since generations before him. Wally Lambs stories are sophisticated, compelling, and epic. A story you can read over and over! This man has an incredible gift of story telling that will take you well into the wee hours of morning turning page after page. Meeting Mr. Lamb would be an honor in itself.

Denise Louise

February 11, 2017

This was one of the best books I've ever read. If you have a loved one who is paranoid schizophrenic you should read this book. You will find that what you are feeling is natural whether it be anger, guilt, grief, frustration or just helpless. This book is not just about schizophrenia, there is a riveting story throughout. It's a long story, 900 pages, and when you have to put it down you will find yourself wondering what is going to happen next. 5 stars!

9 people found this review helpful

Cory Adams

March 28, 2021

Wally Lamb is my favorite author. He creates a world with his words that is no different than the one we inhabit now. His work is nothing less than heart-wrenching human emotion. He is one of a kind, and the best writer of our times.

About the author

Wally Lamb is the author of five New York Times bestselling novels: She’s Come Undone, I Know This Much Is True, The Hour I First Believed, Wishin’ and Hopin’, and We Are Water. His first two works of fiction, She’s Come Undone and I Know This Much Is True, were both #1 New York Times bestsellers and selections of Oprah’s Book Club. Lamb edited Couldn’t Keep It to Myself, I’ll Fly Away, and You Don’t Know Me, three volumes of essays from students in his writing workshop at York Correctional Institution, a women’s prison in Connecticut, where he has been a volunteer facilitator for two decades. He lives in Connecticut and New York.

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