Mystery/Thriller Reading Friends discussion
Spoiler Talk on Books We've Read
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I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb
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i read IKTMIT when it first came out and loved it. aside from loving the way he writes and the story, wally lamb is a local guy and all the locations in his book are name-changed but i know them all. i read most of the book on the beach in westerly (what he called easterly)
Cathy, I had IKTMIT on my Determination List for years and finally read it last year. You are so right -- Wally Lamb wrings you out and hangs you up to dry. I was emotionally spent when I finished it and don't know when I could imagine picking up his latest one, The Hour I First Believed.Somewhere on this board I posted about reading the final chapters of THIFB for a read-a-thon for Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic. You could probably do a search and find it if you were interested.
It's a good thing for me that Wally Lamb isn't more prolific or I'd be mentally, physically and emotionally exhausted. His sweeping story of dysfunctional family makes you look at your own family differently and if you're lucky realize it wasn't as dysfunctional as you thought. But more than he invokes lots and lots of introspection. His books aren't "Christian" books, per se, but there is a lot to make you think about REAL morality. Love vs. indifference. People really doing the best they can. Forgiveness for the weaknesses of others - and yourself. His books are torture to read. They make you look in the mirror. WANT to be a better person, more caring, less judgmental. The biggest sins: self-absorption to the point where you can't see others' point of view or feelings. Indifference. But yet we are what we are and overcoming our own weaknesses to be that better person - much easier to vow than to follow through.
The frame of the story is a set of twins, Thomas and Dominick. Thomas develops schizophrenia. Dominick does not. He's the "stronger" twin but comes to resent his strength that made his brother his mother's favorite, the protected one. The strong do get tired of being strong and come to resent it. But yet that strength is ultimately what pulls him through. Gosh, so much I could say.....I rooted for Dominick all the way through though and to me with all his "issues" that's a testament to how good Wally Lamb is.