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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
A lyrical masterpiece of the wisdom of a broken heart, 23 Jun 2003
When I first heard about I KNOW THIS MUCH IS TRUE on Oprah a couple of years ago I avoided it for two reasons, the latter being the important one. I knew all too well much of the subject matter, as it possessed my father; as close to me as the fictional character's brother was to him. But when I finished reading this literally 900-page novel a week ago, all I could think was that this was its cental flaw: IT WAS TOO SHORT.Wally Lamb, a genius of a novelist, has written a momument to love, healing, self-awareness and the human spirit that has only been equalled, I can only guess, by some of the best work of the 20th century--including Joyce, Melville, Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison and Hemingway. I cannot imagine anything ever written short of the world's religious texts surpassing this. The central story is of a man named Thomas Birdsey and his struggle to answer with honor the Biblical question Cain asked God--"Am I my brother's keeper?"--via taking care of his schizophrenic twin, and his own struggle against the dying of the light of his own sanity in the process. Lamb manages to teach more lessons about the nature of life, family, power, abuse, pain, wounds, healing, forgiveness, spirit, love and epiphany through the flowering of Thomas' consciousness in this novel--not to mention the architectue of schizophrenia itself, and how it serves as the ideal albeit frightening metaphor for our entire Age--than any DOZEN self-help books, tear-jerker movies and trips to Church or the therapist that I could ever think of. Lamb does not tear apart the the fabric of modern life or maliciously diagnose the diseases affecting it for the manipulative purpose of creating characters and a convincing storyline. He sings modern life. He creates a symphony with modern life. And in so doing he bears a human soul more true and more consistently than most real people are capable of bearing to the most intimate among us in a lifetime. The family and friends and even strangers in this novel became family and friends and meaningful people to me; so much so that after 900 pages I still didn't want the book to end, even when it did so nearly perfectly. In other words, Wally Lamb with I KNOW THIS MUCH IS TRUE places the novel, the entire art form that is the modern novel, back into its proper place as part of the healing art of mythic sorytelling, in a way that has to be read to be imagined or believed. I sat with this book ready to embrace a fairly good story and fairly good writing. I found myself turning pages uncontrollably and wiping tears as several of the chapters ended and whole new chapters of a human life began. A book I subconsciously gave myself a month or so to get through became the book I read in a little more than a week, wishing there was more. This is a masterfully constructed piece of craftsmanship given life by the heart of a Shaman, in love with life. Read this book regardless of your background and be changed--for the better. The tired old cliches have finally been given a book that gives them new life: I laughed, I cried; I couldn't put it down.
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