A Book I Just Read

Despite the fact that no one (critic-wise) seems to really like Wally Lamb's I Know This Much is True, mainly because it was endorsed by the blessed/cursed "Oprah's Book Club" stamp of approval and instant cashflow insurance, I laughed, cried, and couldn't put this book down before 3 or 4 am each night.

Granted, it is almost 900 pages long and I have chronic insomnia; not for the dabbling reader. I read his first book, She's Come Undone, and that was good enough to hook me into another. I'm usually unsure about books that say Oprah on them, but my writing professor in college's friend Brett Lott got his big break because of her and he had street cred before the gazillionaire TV show host endorsed his work. All that to say, "Hey, check out this book or at least this author."

Ever since my mother's little sister committed suicide in 2000, I've had a love/hate relationship with anything related to paranoid schitzophrenia, her unfortunate affliction. She lived with us at the height of her illness and paranoia. This is a story about twin brothers; one is schitzophrenic and at the height of his illness, one is not. The uncrazy twin narrator is lovable and flawed. The people in his life and interesting and mysterious.

Yes, it's long. Yes, it's painful. I'm glad I read it.