A fine read

I've been doing quite a bit of re-reading lately. In some cases the return hadn't been a great success, but in others it's been profoundly worth while. This is one of those cases.

It may be that I gave up on this book the first time round (though it's only very rarely that happens), but it certainly felt this time that I was coming to it for the first time. It's riveting stuff, superbly well written. The blurb on the back includes this: Dominick Birdsey's entire life has been compromised and constricted by Thomas,the paranoid schizophrenic twin he both loves and resents. Born in the waning moments of 1949 and the opening minutes of 1950, the twins are physical mirror images who grow into distinct yet connected entities in small-town Connecticut, From childhood, Dominick fights for separation and wholeness in a house of fear. [...] Dominick's talent for survival [...] will be put to the ultimate test when his brother commits an unthinkable act that threatens the tenuous balance of both his and Dominick's life.

That bare-bones description comes nowhere near preparing a reader for the ride ahead. It's an enthralling read, and Dominick's character is brilliantly painted by the author Wally Lamb. To an extent it is a journey of investigation which only becomes resolved at the very end of the book. It's also a brilliant achievement in terms of the interweaving of many different plot lines which finally come together at the end.

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By the way, that hand sticking out of the book is a bookmark which Carl brought back from one of his business trips to the US.