I never read this book until now because I also have a connection to one of those named in the dedication: to Sam Deglin, a high school friend who, along with her younger brother Randy, was killed in a freak car accident in front of our high school in January of 1997. I didn't know Lamb very well, but I always found him pretty favorable, one of those teachers you like because they never actually have to give you a grade. I know a number of the people named in the acknowledgements (including several of my high school teachers), and my high school gets a shout-out as well. The novel is about many things, but most of all, as told from Dominick's perspective, it is about forgiveness of the self, of family, of our pasts, both personal and collective.
The novel tells the story of Dominick and Thomas Birdsey, identical twins dealing with very fraternal problems, namely that Thomas is schizophrenic, and Dominick is almost his last remaining caregiver.
That's actually even before it was officially published, which might seem weird, if you didn't already know that Wally Lamb was teaching writing at my high school at the time he was working on this novel and if you didn't know that my freshman English class helped "edit" one of the first chapters, back in 1994 or 1995. This is a book I have been meaning to read since 1997. Lamb currently lives in Mansfield, Connecticut with his wife, Christine Lamb, and their three sons, Jared, Justin and Teddy. He has edited two collections of autobiographical essays entitled Couldn't Keep It to Myself: Testimonies from Our Imprisoned Sisters (2003) and I'll Fly Away (2007). Lamb has served as a volunteer facilitator for a writing workshop at the York Correctional Institute, a maximum-security prison for women, in Niantic, Connecticut since 1999. in English from the University of Connecticut and an M.F.A.
He was the director of the Writing Center at the Norwich Free Academy, Norwich, Connecticut from 1989-1998, and an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Connecticut’s English Department. Lamb is the recipient of the Connecticut Center for the Book's Lifetime Achievement Award, the Connecticut Bar Association's Distinguished Public Service Award, the Connecticut Governor's Art Award, the Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award, the 1999 New England Book Award for Fiction, and the Missouri Review William Peden Fiction Prize. Two were featured as selections of Oprah's Book Club. Wally Lamb is the author of She's Come Undone, The Hour I First Believed, and I Know This Much Is True.
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