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New York Times bestselling author, television personality, and host of the #1 podcast "Paper Ghosts," M. William Phelps is one of America's most celebrated true crime authorities. In WE THOUGHT WE KNEW YOU, he takes readers deep into the murder of Mary Yoder, a popular wife, mother, and healer in Upstate New York -- telling a gripping tale of a family drama, a determined investigation, and a killer with the face of an angel. In July 2015, Mary Yoder returned home from the chiropractic center that she operated with her husband, Bill, complaining that she felt unwell. Mary, health-conscious and vibrant, was suddenly vomiting, sweating, and weak. Doctors in the ER and ICU were baffled as to the cause of her rapidly progressing illness. Her loved ones--including Bill and their children, Adam, Tamryn, and Liana--gathered in shock to say goodbye. In the weeks that followed Mary's death, the grief-stricken family received startling news from the medical examiner: Mary had been deliberately poisoned. The lethal substance was colchicine, a chemical used to treat gout but extremely toxic if not taken as prescribed. Mary did not have gout. Another bombshell followed when the local sheriff's office received a claim that Adam Yoder had poisoned his mother. But Adam was not the only person of interest in the case. Pretty and popular Kaitlyn Conley, Adam's ex-girlfriend, worked at the Yoders' clinic. She'd even been at Mary's bedside during those last terrible hours. Still, some spoke of her talent for manipulation and a history of bizarre, rage-fueled behavior against anyone who dared to reject her. Had Kaitlyn and Adam conspired to kill Mary Yoder, or was the killer someone else entirely? In another twist, accusations were hurled at Bill Yoder himself, ricocheting blame in still another direction... Renowned investigative journalist M. William Phelps details this incredible story piece by piece, revealing a heartless plan of revenge--a scheme that would tear a family apart, divide a community, and result in two gripping, high-profile trials.
Book Synopsis We Thought We Knew You by : M. William Phelps
Download or read book We Thought We Knew You written by M. William Phelps and published by Kensington. This book was released on 2020-12-29 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times bestselling author, television personality, and host of the #1 podcast "Paper Ghosts," M. William Phelps is one of America's most celebrated true crime authorities. In WE THOUGHT WE KNEW YOU, he takes readers deep into the murder of Mary Yoder, a popular wife, mother, and healer in Upstate New York -- telling a gripping tale of a family drama, a determined investigation, and a killer with the face of an angel. In July 2015, Mary Yoder returned home from the chiropractic center that she operated with her husband, Bill, complaining that she felt unwell. Mary, health-conscious and vibrant, was suddenly vomiting, sweating, and weak. Doctors in the ER and ICU were baffled as to the cause of her rapidly progressing illness. Her loved ones--including Bill and their children, Adam, Tamryn, and Liana--gathered in shock to say goodbye. In the weeks that followed Mary's death, the grief-stricken family received startling news from the medical examiner: Mary had been deliberately poisoned. The lethal substance was colchicine, a chemical used to treat gout but extremely toxic if not taken as prescribed. Mary did not have gout. Another bombshell followed when the local sheriff's office received a claim that Adam Yoder had poisoned his mother. But Adam was not the only person of interest in the case. Pretty and popular Kaitlyn Conley, Adam's ex-girlfriend, worked at the Yoders' clinic. She'd even been at Mary's bedside during those last terrible hours. Still, some spoke of her talent for manipulation and a history of bizarre, rage-fueled behavior against anyone who dared to reject her. Had Kaitlyn and Adam conspired to kill Mary Yoder, or was the killer someone else entirely? In another twist, accusations were hurled at Bill Yoder himself, ricocheting blame in still another direction... Renowned investigative journalist M. William Phelps details this incredible story piece by piece, revealing a heartless plan of revenge--a scheme that would tear a family apart, divide a community, and result in two gripping, high-profile trials.
A teenage girl wonders if she's inherited more than just a heart from her donor in this compulsively readable debut. Seventeen-year-old Chloe had a plan: work hard, get good grades, and attend a top-tier college. But after she collapses during cross-country practice and is told that she needs a new heart, all her careful preparations are laid to waste. Eight months after her transplant, everything is different. Stuck in summer school with the underachievers, all she wants to do now is grab her surfboard and hit the waves--which is strange, because she wasn't interested in surfing before her transplant. (It doesn't hurt that her instructor, Kai, is seriously good-looking.) And that's not all that's strange. There's also the vivid recurring nightmare about crashing a motorcycle in a tunnel and memories of people and places she doesn't recognize. Is there something wrong with her head now, too, or is there another explanation for what she's experiencing? As she searches for answers, and as her attraction to Kai intensifies, what she learns will lead her to question everything she thought she knew--about life, death, love, identity, and the true nature of reality.
Book Synopsis Everything I Thought I Knew by : Shannon Takaoka
Download or read book Everything I Thought I Knew written by Shannon Takaoka and published by Candlewick Press. This book was released on 2023-10-10 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A teenage girl wonders if she's inherited more than just a heart from her donor in this compulsively readable debut. Seventeen-year-old Chloe had a plan: work hard, get good grades, and attend a top-tier college. But after she collapses during cross-country practice and is told that she needs a new heart, all her careful preparations are laid to waste. Eight months after her transplant, everything is different. Stuck in summer school with the underachievers, all she wants to do now is grab her surfboard and hit the waves--which is strange, because she wasn't interested in surfing before her transplant. (It doesn't hurt that her instructor, Kai, is seriously good-looking.) And that's not all that's strange. There's also the vivid recurring nightmare about crashing a motorcycle in a tunnel and memories of people and places she doesn't recognize. Is there something wrong with her head now, too, or is there another explanation for what she's experiencing? As she searches for answers, and as her attraction to Kai intensifies, what she learns will lead her to question everything she thought she knew--about life, death, love, identity, and the true nature of reality.
"Darkly hilarious...an unexpected bundle of joy." -O, The Oprah Magazine Alice Cohen was happy for the first time in years. After a difficult divorce, she had a new love in her life, she was raising a beloved adopted daughter, and her career was blossoming. Then she started experiencing mysterious symptoms. After months of tests, x-rays, and inconclusive diagnoses, Alice underwent a CAT scan that revealed the truth: she was six months pregnant. At age forty-four, with no prenatal care and no insurance coverage for a high-risk pregnancy, Alice was besieged by opinions from doctors and friends about what was ethical, what was loving, what was right. With the intimacy of a diary and the suspense of a thriller, What I Thought I Knew is a ruefully funny, wickedly candid tale; a story of hope and renewal that turns all of the "knowns" upside down.
Book Synopsis What I Thought I Knew by : Alice Eve Cohen
Download or read book What I Thought I Knew written by Alice Eve Cohen and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2009-07-09 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Darkly hilarious...an unexpected bundle of joy." -O, The Oprah Magazine Alice Cohen was happy for the first time in years. After a difficult divorce, she had a new love in her life, she was raising a beloved adopted daughter, and her career was blossoming. Then she started experiencing mysterious symptoms. After months of tests, x-rays, and inconclusive diagnoses, Alice underwent a CAT scan that revealed the truth: she was six months pregnant. At age forty-four, with no prenatal care and no insurance coverage for a high-risk pregnancy, Alice was besieged by opinions from doctors and friends about what was ethical, what was loving, what was right. With the intimacy of a diary and the suspense of a thriller, What I Thought I Knew is a ruefully funny, wickedly candid tale; a story of hope and renewal that turns all of the "knowns" upside down.
I guess I always felt even if the world came to an end, McDonald's still would be open. High school sophomore Miranda's disbelief turns to fear in a split second when an asteroid knocks the moon closer to Earth, like "one marble hits another." The result is catastrophic. How can her family prepare for the future when worldwide tsunamis are wiping out the coasts, earthquakes are rocking the continents, and volcanic ash is blocking out the sun? As August turns dark and wintery in northeastern Pennsylvania, Miranda, her two brothers, and their mother retreat to the unexpected safe haven of their sunroom, where they subsist on stockpiled food and limited water in the warmth of a wood-burning stove. Told in a year's worth of journal entries, this heart-pounding story chronicles Miranda's struggle to hold on to the most important resource of all--hope--in an increasingly desperate and unfamiliar world. An extraordinary series debut Susan Beth Pfeffer has written several companion novels to Life As We Knew It, including The Dead and the Gone, This World We Live In, and The Shade of the Moon.
Book Synopsis Life as We Knew it by : Susan Beth Pfeffer
Download or read book Life as We Knew it written by Susan Beth Pfeffer and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2008 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: I guess I always felt even if the world came to an end, McDonald's still would be open. High school sophomore Miranda's disbelief turns to fear in a split second when an asteroid knocks the moon closer to Earth, like "one marble hits another." The result is catastrophic. How can her family prepare for the future when worldwide tsunamis are wiping out the coasts, earthquakes are rocking the continents, and volcanic ash is blocking out the sun? As August turns dark and wintery in northeastern Pennsylvania, Miranda, her two brothers, and their mother retreat to the unexpected safe haven of their sunroom, where they subsist on stockpiled food and limited water in the warmth of a wood-burning stove. Told in a year's worth of journal entries, this heart-pounding story chronicles Miranda's struggle to hold on to the most important resource of all--hope--in an increasingly desperate and unfamiliar world. An extraordinary series debut Susan Beth Pfeffer has written several companion novels to Life As We Knew It, including The Dead and the Gone, This World We Live In, and The Shade of the Moon.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * LONGLISTED FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL On the brink of World War II, with the Nazis tightening their grip on Berlin, a mother’s act of courage and love offers her daughter a chance of survival. “[A] hymn to the power of resistance, perseverance, and enduring love in dark times…gravely beautiful…Hoffman the storyteller continues to dazzle.” —THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW At the time when the world changed, Hanni Kohn knows she must send her twelve-year-old daughter away to save her from the Nazi regime. Her desperation leads her to Ettie, the daughter of a rabbi whose years spent eavesdropping on her father enables her to create a mystical Jewish creature, a rare and unusual golem, who is sworn to protect Hanni’s daughter, Lea. Once Ava is brought to life, she and Lea and Ettie become eternally entwined, their paths fated to cross, their fortunes linked. What does it mean to lose your mother? How much can one person sacrifice for love? In a world where evil can be found at every turn, we meet remarkable characters that take us on a stunning journey of loss and resistance, the fantastical and the mortal, in a place where all roads lead past the Angel of Death and love is never-ending.
Book Synopsis The World That We Knew by : Alice Hoffman
Download or read book The World That We Knew written by Alice Hoffman and published by Simon & Schuster. This book was released on 2020-09-01 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * LONGLISTED FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL On the brink of World War II, with the Nazis tightening their grip on Berlin, a mother’s act of courage and love offers her daughter a chance of survival. “[A] hymn to the power of resistance, perseverance, and enduring love in dark times…gravely beautiful…Hoffman the storyteller continues to dazzle.” —THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW At the time when the world changed, Hanni Kohn knows she must send her twelve-year-old daughter away to save her from the Nazi regime. Her desperation leads her to Ettie, the daughter of a rabbi whose years spent eavesdropping on her father enables her to create a mystical Jewish creature, a rare and unusual golem, who is sworn to protect Hanni’s daughter, Lea. Once Ava is brought to life, she and Lea and Ettie become eternally entwined, their paths fated to cross, their fortunes linked. What does it mean to lose your mother? How much can one person sacrifice for love? In a world where evil can be found at every turn, we meet remarkable characters that take us on a stunning journey of loss and resistance, the fantastical and the mortal, in a place where all roads lead past the Angel of Death and love is never-ending.
Ten years ago, two girls’ lives changed forever. Now one of them is ready to tell their story. *** 'A quirky lovable mystery and a brilliant, heartbreaking debut' Stylist 'A new face of fiction [and] an original coming of age novel' Observer *** The first memory I have of you is all knickers and legs. You had flipped yourself into a handstand and couldn’t get back down. We became best friends, racing slugs, pretending to be spies – all the things that children do. Ten years later, eighteen-year-old Ravine Roy spends every day in her room. Completing crosswords and scribbling in her journal, she keeps the outside world exactly where she wants it; outside. But as the real world begins to invade her carefully controlled space, she is forced to finally confront the questions she’s been avoiding. Who is her mother meeting in secret? Who has moved in next door? And why, all those years ago, when two girls pulled on their raincoats and wellies and headed out into the woods did only one of them return? ‘A breakout book from an incredibly talented debut writer. Read, weep and laugh’ Stylist ‘An original heartfelt read by a new British talent’ Independent ‘A delightfully fresh voice’ Daily Mail
Book Synopsis The Things We Thought We Knew by : Mahsuda Snaith
Download or read book The Things We Thought We Knew written by Mahsuda Snaith and published by Random House. This book was released on 2017-06-15 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ten years ago, two girls’ lives changed forever. Now one of them is ready to tell their story. *** 'A quirky lovable mystery and a brilliant, heartbreaking debut' Stylist 'A new face of fiction [and] an original coming of age novel' Observer *** The first memory I have of you is all knickers and legs. You had flipped yourself into a handstand and couldn’t get back down. We became best friends, racing slugs, pretending to be spies – all the things that children do. Ten years later, eighteen-year-old Ravine Roy spends every day in her room. Completing crosswords and scribbling in her journal, she keeps the outside world exactly where she wants it; outside. But as the real world begins to invade her carefully controlled space, she is forced to finally confront the questions she’s been avoiding. Who is her mother meeting in secret? Who has moved in next door? And why, all those years ago, when two girls pulled on their raincoats and wellies and headed out into the woods did only one of them return? ‘A breakout book from an incredibly talented debut writer. Read, weep and laugh’ Stylist ‘An original heartfelt read by a new British talent’ Independent ‘A delightfully fresh voice’ Daily Mail
Drawing on interviews with four thousand German Jews and non-Jewish Germans who experienced the Third Reich firsthand, presents an oral history of life in Nazi Germany, addressing such issues as guilt and ignorance concerning the mass murder of European Jews, anti-Semitism, and the popular appeal of Hitler and National Socialism.
Book Synopsis What We Knew by : Eric A. Johnson
Download or read book What We Knew written by Eric A. Johnson and published by Basic Books (AZ). This book was released on 2006-02-28 with total page 460 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on interviews with four thousand German Jews and non-Jewish Germans who experienced the Third Reich firsthand, presents an oral history of life in Nazi Germany, addressing such issues as guilt and ignorance concerning the mass murder of European Jews, anti-Semitism, and the popular appeal of Hitler and National Socialism.
For fans of He Said/She Said and Anatomy of a Scandal, Penny Hancock’s I Thought I Knew You is about secrets and lies – and whose side you take when it really matters. Who do you know better? Your oldest friend? Or your child? And who should you believe when one accuses the other of an abhorrent crime? Jules and Holly have been best friends since university. They tell each other everything, trading revelations and confessions, and sharing both the big moments and the small details of their lives: Holly is the only person who knows about Jules’s affair; Jules was there for Holly when her husband died. And their two children – just four years apart – have grown up together. So when Jules’s daughter Saffie makes a rape allegation against Holly’s son Saul, neither woman is prepared for the devastating impact this will have on their friendship or their families. Especially as Holly, in spite of her principles, refuses to believe her son is guilty.
Book Synopsis I Thought I Knew You by : Penny Hancock
Download or read book I Thought I Knew You written by Penny Hancock and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2019-03-07 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For fans of He Said/She Said and Anatomy of a Scandal, Penny Hancock’s I Thought I Knew You is about secrets and lies – and whose side you take when it really matters. Who do you know better? Your oldest friend? Or your child? And who should you believe when one accuses the other of an abhorrent crime? Jules and Holly have been best friends since university. They tell each other everything, trading revelations and confessions, and sharing both the big moments and the small details of their lives: Holly is the only person who knows about Jules’s affair; Jules was there for Holly when her husband died. And their two children – just four years apart – have grown up together. So when Jules’s daughter Saffie makes a rape allegation against Holly’s son Saul, neither woman is prepared for the devastating impact this will have on their friendship or their families. Especially as Holly, in spite of her principles, refuses to believe her son is guilty.
She was so sure she knew her family's story . . . Now she wonders if she was wrong about all of it. 1969. When Mattie Taylor's twin brother was killed in Vietnam, she lost her best friend and the only person who really understood her. Now, news that her mother is dying sends Mattie back home, despite blaming her father for Mark's death. Mama's last wish is that Mattie would read some old letters stored in a locked trunk, from people Mattie doesn't even know. Mama insists they hold the answers Mattie is looking for. 1942. Ava Delaney is picking up the pieces of her life following her husband's death at Pearl Harbor. Living with her mother-in-law on a secluded farm in Tennessee is far different than the life Ava imagined when she married only a few short months ago. Desperate to get out of the house, Ava seeks work at a nearby military base, where she soon discovers the American government is housing Germans who they have classified as enemy aliens. As Ava works to process legal documents for the military, she crosses paths with Gunther Schneider, a German who is helping care for wounded soldiers. Ava questions why a man as gentle and kind as Gunther should be forced to live in the internment camp, and as they become friends, her sense of the injustice grows . . . as do her feelings for him. Faced with the possibility of losing Gunther, Ava must choose whether loving someone deemed the enemy is a risk worth taking, even if it means being ostracized by all those around her. In the midst of pain and loss two women must come face-to-face with their own assumptions about what they thought they knew about themselves and others. What they discover will lead to a far greater appreciation of their own legacies and the love of those dearest to them. Includes discussion guide for book groups Standalone Southern, historical family drama about enduring hope amid personal tragedy Clean, suspenseful historical fiction, perfect for fans of Susan Meissner or Lisa Wingate Dual timeline set during the Vietnam War and WWII.
Book Synopsis All We Thought We Knew by : MICHELLE. SHOCKLEE
Download or read book All We Thought We Knew written by MICHELLE. SHOCKLEE and published by Tyndale House Publishers. This book was released on 2024-10 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: She was so sure she knew her family's story . . . Now she wonders if she was wrong about all of it. 1969. When Mattie Taylor's twin brother was killed in Vietnam, she lost her best friend and the only person who really understood her. Now, news that her mother is dying sends Mattie back home, despite blaming her father for Mark's death. Mama's last wish is that Mattie would read some old letters stored in a locked trunk, from people Mattie doesn't even know. Mama insists they hold the answers Mattie is looking for. 1942. Ava Delaney is picking up the pieces of her life following her husband's death at Pearl Harbor. Living with her mother-in-law on a secluded farm in Tennessee is far different than the life Ava imagined when she married only a few short months ago. Desperate to get out of the house, Ava seeks work at a nearby military base, where she soon discovers the American government is housing Germans who they have classified as enemy aliens. As Ava works to process legal documents for the military, she crosses paths with Gunther Schneider, a German who is helping care for wounded soldiers. Ava questions why a man as gentle and kind as Gunther should be forced to live in the internment camp, and as they become friends, her sense of the injustice grows . . . as do her feelings for him. Faced with the possibility of losing Gunther, Ava must choose whether loving someone deemed the enemy is a risk worth taking, even if it means being ostracized by all those around her. In the midst of pain and loss two women must come face-to-face with their own assumptions about what they thought they knew about themselves and others. What they discover will lead to a far greater appreciation of their own legacies and the love of those dearest to them. Includes discussion guide for book groups Standalone Southern, historical family drama about enduring hope amid personal tragedy Clean, suspenseful historical fiction, perfect for fans of Susan Meissner or Lisa Wingate Dual timeline set during the Vietnam War and WWII.
With his stunning debut novel, She's Come Undone, Wally Lamb won the adulation of critics and readers with his mesmerizing tale of one woman's painful yet triumphant journey of self-discovery. Now, this brilliantly talented writer returns with I Know This Much Is True, a heartbreaking and poignant multigenerational saga of the reproductive bonds of destruction and the powerful force of forgiveness. A masterpiece that breathtakingly tells a story of alienation and connection, power and abuse, devastation and renewal--this novel is a contemporary retelling of an ancient Hindu myth. A proud king must confront his demons to achieve salvation. Change yourself, the myth instructs, and you will inhabit a renovated world. When you're the same brother of a schizophrenic identical twin, the tricky thing about saving yourself is the blood it leaves on your bands--the little inconvenience of the look-alike corpse at your feet. And if you're into both survival of the fittest and being your brother's keeper--if you've promised your dying mother--then say so long to sleep and hello to the middle of the night. Grab a book or a beer. Get used to Letterman's gap-toothed smile of the absurd, or the view of the bedroom ceiling, or the influence of random selection. Take it from a godless insomniac. Take it from the uncrazy twin--the guy who beat the biochemical rap. Dominick Birdsey's entire life has been compromised and constricted by anger and fear, by the paranoid schizophrenic twin brother he both deeply loves and resents, and by the past they shared with their adoptive father, Ray, a spit-and-polish ex-Navy man (the five-foot-six-inch sleeping giant who snoozed upstairs weekdays in the spare room and built submarines at night), and their long-suffering mother, Concettina, a timid woman with a harelip that made her shy and self-conscious: She holds a loose fist to her face to cover her defective mouth--her perpetual apology to the world for a birth defect over which she'd had no control. Born in the waning moments of 1949 and the opening minutes of 1950, the twins are physical mirror images who grow into separate yet connected entities: the seemingly strong and protective yet fearful Dominick, his mother's watchful "monkey"; and the seemingly weak and sweet yet noble Thomas, his mother's gentle "bunny." From childhood, Dominick fights for both separation and wholeness--and ultimately self-protection--in a house of fear dominated by Ray, a bully who abuses his power over these stepsons whose biological father is a mystery. I was still afraid of his anger but saw how he punished weakness--pounced on it. Out of self-preservation I hid my fear, Dominick confesses. As for Thomas, he just never knew how to play defense. He just didn't get it. But Dominick's talent for survival comes at an enormous cost, including the breakup of his marriage to the warm, beautiful Dessa, whom he still loves. And it will be put to the ultimate test when Thomas, a Bible-spouting zealot, commits an unthinkable act that threatens the tenuous balance of both his and Dominick's lives. To save himself, Dominick must confront not only the pain of his past but the dark secrets he has locked deep within himself, and the sins of his ancestors--a quest that will lead him beyond the confines of his blue-collar New England town to the volcanic foothills of Sicily 's Mount Etna, where his ambitious and vengefully proud grandfather and a namesake Domenico Tempesta, the sostegno del famiglia, was born. Each of the stories Ma told us about Papa reinforced the message that he was the boss, that he ruled the roost, that what he said went. Searching for answers, Dominick turns to the whispers of the dead, to the pages of his grandfather's handwritten memoir, The History of Domenico Onofrio Tempesta, a Great Man from Humble Beginnings. Rendered with touches of magic realism, Domenico's fablelike tale--in which monkeys enchant and religious statues weep--becomes the old man's confession--an unwitting legacy of contrition that reveals the truth's of Domenico's life, Dominick learns that power, wrongly used, defeats the oppressor as well as the oppressed, and now, picking through the humble shards of his deconstructed life, he will search for the courage and love to forgive, to expiate his and his ancestors' transgressions, and finally to rebuild himself beyond the haunted shadow of his twin. Set against the vivid panoply of twentieth-century America and filled with richly drawn, memorable characters, this deeply moving and thoroughly satisfying novel brings to light humanity's deepest needs and fears, our aloneness, our desire for love and acceptance, our struggle to survive at all costs. Joyous, mystical, and exquisitely written, I Know This Much Is True is an extraordinary reading experience that will leave no reader untouched.
Book Synopsis I Know This Much Is True by : Wally Lamb
Download or read book I Know This Much Is True written by Wally Lamb and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1998-06-03 with total page 884 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With his stunning debut novel, She's Come Undone, Wally Lamb won the adulation of critics and readers with his mesmerizing tale of one woman's painful yet triumphant journey of self-discovery. Now, this brilliantly talented writer returns with I Know This Much Is True, a heartbreaking and poignant multigenerational saga of the reproductive bonds of destruction and the powerful force of forgiveness. A masterpiece that breathtakingly tells a story of alienation and connection, power and abuse, devastation and renewal--this novel is a contemporary retelling of an ancient Hindu myth. A proud king must confront his demons to achieve salvation. Change yourself, the myth instructs, and you will inhabit a renovated world. When you're the same brother of a schizophrenic identical twin, the tricky thing about saving yourself is the blood it leaves on your bands--the little inconvenience of the look-alike corpse at your feet. And if you're into both survival of the fittest and being your brother's keeper--if you've promised your dying mother--then say so long to sleep and hello to the middle of the night. Grab a book or a beer. Get used to Letterman's gap-toothed smile of the absurd, or the view of the bedroom ceiling, or the influence of random selection. Take it from a godless insomniac. Take it from the uncrazy twin--the guy who beat the biochemical rap. Dominick Birdsey's entire life has been compromised and constricted by anger and fear, by the paranoid schizophrenic twin brother he both deeply loves and resents, and by the past they shared with their adoptive father, Ray, a spit-and-polish ex-Navy man (the five-foot-six-inch sleeping giant who snoozed upstairs weekdays in the spare room and built submarines at night), and their long-suffering mother, Concettina, a timid woman with a harelip that made her shy and self-conscious: She holds a loose fist to her face to cover her defective mouth--her perpetual apology to the world for a birth defect over which she'd had no control. Born in the waning moments of 1949 and the opening minutes of 1950, the twins are physical mirror images who grow into separate yet connected entities: the seemingly strong and protective yet fearful Dominick, his mother's watchful "monkey"; and the seemingly weak and sweet yet noble Thomas, his mother's gentle "bunny." From childhood, Dominick fights for both separation and wholeness--and ultimately self-protection--in a house of fear dominated by Ray, a bully who abuses his power over these stepsons whose biological father is a mystery. I was still afraid of his anger but saw how he punished weakness--pounced on it. Out of self-preservation I hid my fear, Dominick confesses. As for Thomas, he just never knew how to play defense. He just didn't get it. But Dominick's talent for survival comes at an enormous cost, including the breakup of his marriage to the warm, beautiful Dessa, whom he still loves. And it will be put to the ultimate test when Thomas, a Bible-spouting zealot, commits an unthinkable act that threatens the tenuous balance of both his and Dominick's lives. To save himself, Dominick must confront not only the pain of his past but the dark secrets he has locked deep within himself, and the sins of his ancestors--a quest that will lead him beyond the confines of his blue-collar New England town to the volcanic foothills of Sicily 's Mount Etna, where his ambitious and vengefully proud grandfather and a namesake Domenico Tempesta, the sostegno del famiglia, was born. Each of the stories Ma told us about Papa reinforced the message that he was the boss, that he ruled the roost, that what he said went. Searching for answers, Dominick turns to the whispers of the dead, to the pages of his grandfather's handwritten memoir, The History of Domenico Onofrio Tempesta, a Great Man from Humble Beginnings. Rendered with touches of magic realism, Domenico's fablelike tale--in which monkeys enchant and religious statues weep--becomes the old man's confession--an unwitting legacy of contrition that reveals the truth's of Domenico's life, Dominick learns that power, wrongly used, defeats the oppressor as well as the oppressed, and now, picking through the humble shards of his deconstructed life, he will search for the courage and love to forgive, to expiate his and his ancestors' transgressions, and finally to rebuild himself beyond the haunted shadow of his twin. Set against the vivid panoply of twentieth-century America and filled with richly drawn, memorable characters, this deeply moving and thoroughly satisfying novel brings to light humanity's deepest needs and fears, our aloneness, our desire for love and acceptance, our struggle to survive at all costs. Joyous, mystical, and exquisitely written, I Know This Much Is True is an extraordinary reading experience that will leave no reader untouched.
