it may not be a fair criticism, but i think i would've liked this book more if it had been a biography rather than a novel. i read it because i was curious about the twins, but this story is fiction, which i knew going in, and the fact that it was fiction diminished my enjoyment. there was very little to redeem the lives of these men, which were doomed to loneliness and frustration by both their condition and their personalities, and unfortunately, i didn't feel like strauss' prose lifted me much out of the morass.