Author: Andrea Jarrell
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1631522612
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 147
Book Description
As featured in the New York Times “Modern Love” column * a Redbook Magazine must-read * Rumpus, Hello Giggles, Bustle, and Southern Living magazine Fall book pick Fugitives from a man as alluring as he is violent, Andrea Jarrell and her mother develop a powerful, unusual bond. Once grown, Jarrell thinks she’s put that chapter of her life behind her—until a woman she knows is murdered, and she suddenly sees that it’s her mother’s choices she’s been trying to escape all along. Without preaching or prescribing, I’m the One Who Got Away is a life-affirming story of having the courage to become both safe enough and vulnerable enough to love and be loved.
I'm the One Who Got Away
Author: Andrea Jarrell
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1631522612
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 147
Book Description
As featured in the New York Times “Modern Love” column * a Redbook Magazine must-read * Rumpus, Hello Giggles, Bustle, and Southern Living magazine Fall book pick Fugitives from a man as alluring as he is violent, Andrea Jarrell and her mother develop a powerful, unusual bond. Once grown, Jarrell thinks she’s put that chapter of her life behind her—until a woman she knows is murdered, and she suddenly sees that it’s her mother’s choices she’s been trying to escape all along. Without preaching or prescribing, I’m the One Who Got Away is a life-affirming story of having the courage to become both safe enough and vulnerable enough to love and be loved.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1631522612
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 147
Book Description
As featured in the New York Times “Modern Love” column * a Redbook Magazine must-read * Rumpus, Hello Giggles, Bustle, and Southern Living magazine Fall book pick Fugitives from a man as alluring as he is violent, Andrea Jarrell and her mother develop a powerful, unusual bond. Once grown, Jarrell thinks she’s put that chapter of her life behind her—until a woman she knows is murdered, and she suddenly sees that it’s her mother’s choices she’s been trying to escape all along. Without preaching or prescribing, I’m the One Who Got Away is a life-affirming story of having the courage to become both safe enough and vulnerable enough to love and be loved.
Win Your Breakup: How to Be The One That Got Away
Author: Natasha Adamo
Publisher: Lioncrest Publishing
ISBN: 9781544522784
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 234
Book Description
You picked up this book because your breakup has been reduced to something that you feel you must "win" to emotionally survive and move on. This reduction can only take place if you were involved with a toxic person. Toxic people are selfish, empathetically bankrupt, and have a limited relationship with reality. Anyone who feels validated by exploiting your hunger for theirs is toxic-to your peace, your life, and your mental health. Breakups aren't won by game-playing or vilifying your ex. They're won by realizing that winning is losing a partner who has proven to be a dead end. A new life is waiting for you at the end of this journey. In Win Your Breakup, relationship and self-help coach Natasha Adamo presents the opportunity for a life with relationships that you don't have to tolerate and eggshell-walk your way through. It's a life in which your ex regrets the day they ever decided to breach your trust and break your heart; a life in which those who took you for granted wish you could find a way back into theirs. In this life, you can choose to walk away from toxicity-no more trying to be the person someone may want, may commit to, may be honest with, and may treat with respect. This life is about to be your own.
Publisher: Lioncrest Publishing
ISBN: 9781544522784
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 234
Book Description
You picked up this book because your breakup has been reduced to something that you feel you must "win" to emotionally survive and move on. This reduction can only take place if you were involved with a toxic person. Toxic people are selfish, empathetically bankrupt, and have a limited relationship with reality. Anyone who feels validated by exploiting your hunger for theirs is toxic-to your peace, your life, and your mental health. Breakups aren't won by game-playing or vilifying your ex. They're won by realizing that winning is losing a partner who has proven to be a dead end. A new life is waiting for you at the end of this journey. In Win Your Breakup, relationship and self-help coach Natasha Adamo presents the opportunity for a life with relationships that you don't have to tolerate and eggshell-walk your way through. It's a life in which your ex regrets the day they ever decided to breach your trust and break your heart; a life in which those who took you for granted wish you could find a way back into theirs. In this life, you can choose to walk away from toxicity-no more trying to be the person someone may want, may commit to, may be honest with, and may treat with respect. This life is about to be your own.
You Only Fall in Love Three Times
Author: Kate Rose
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0525542736
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 242
Book Description
Discover the three types of love--and the key to finding the one you're truly meant to be with. We love and we love again -- sometimes our hearts get broken but, somehow, we find the courage to dive back in. In this soul-searching book, relationship expert Kate Rose guides readers down the path to a deeper understanding of who they are, what they want, and finally, to the discovery of their Twin Flame. According to Rose, love is a journey of self-discovery and every relationship we have in our lives teaches us something that we need to learn about ourselves and what will make us truly happy. She introduces readers to the three types of love we will all experience: The Soulmate introduces us to the dream of love, but somehow what seemed like it would be "happily ever after" wasn't meant to last forever. We are so consumed with making The Karmic Love work that we often fail to question whether it should work. As painful as it is to accept, this love that felt so right in the beginning is actually all wrong. The Twin Flame comes into our lives and often we don't even know it's love because . . . it's too easy. This is the love who helps us to accept ourselves just as we are because this is precisely what they do. In You Only Fall in Love Three Times, Kate Rose shows us that happy endings may not happen quite the way they do in fairytales-- but they happen nonetheless.
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0525542736
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 242
Book Description
Discover the three types of love--and the key to finding the one you're truly meant to be with. We love and we love again -- sometimes our hearts get broken but, somehow, we find the courage to dive back in. In this soul-searching book, relationship expert Kate Rose guides readers down the path to a deeper understanding of who they are, what they want, and finally, to the discovery of their Twin Flame. According to Rose, love is a journey of self-discovery and every relationship we have in our lives teaches us something that we need to learn about ourselves and what will make us truly happy. She introduces readers to the three types of love we will all experience: The Soulmate introduces us to the dream of love, but somehow what seemed like it would be "happily ever after" wasn't meant to last forever. We are so consumed with making The Karmic Love work that we often fail to question whether it should work. As painful as it is to accept, this love that felt so right in the beginning is actually all wrong. The Twin Flame comes into our lives and often we don't even know it's love because . . . it's too easy. This is the love who helps us to accept ourselves just as we are because this is precisely what they do. In You Only Fall in Love Three Times, Kate Rose shows us that happy endings may not happen quite the way they do in fairytales-- but they happen nonetheless.
Dreams That Can Save Your Life
Author: Larry Burk
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1844097560
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 400
Book Description
An exploration of dreams as a spiritual source of healing and inner guidance for your health and well-being • 2018 Nautilus Silver Award • Shares stories--confirmed by pathology reports--from subjects in medical research projects whose dreams diagnosed illness and helped heal their lives • Explores medical studies and ongoing research on the diagnostic power of precognitive dreams, including Dr. Burk’s own medical research • Includes an introduction to dream journaling and interpretation techniques Your dreams can provide inner guidance filled with life-saving information. Since ancient Egypt and Greece, people have relied on the art of dreaming to diagnose illness and get answers to personal life challenges. Now, dreams are making a grand reappearance in the medical arena as recent scientific research and medical pathology reports validate the diagnostic abilities of precognitive dreams. Are we stepping back into the future as modern medical tests show dreams can be early warning signs of cancer and other diseases? Showcasing the important role of dreams and their power to detect and heal illness, Dr. Larry Burk and Kathleen O’Keefe-Kanavos share amazing research and true stories of physical and emotional healings triggered by dreams. The authors explore medical studies and ongoing research on the diagnostic power of precognitive dreams, including Dr. Burk’s own research on dreams that come true and can be medically validated. They share detailed stories--all confirmed by pathology reports--from subjects in medical research projects whose dreams diagnosed illness and helped heal their lives, including Kathleen’s own story as a three-time breast cancer survivor whose dreams diagnosed her cancer even when it was missed by her doctors. Alongside these stories of survival and faith, the authors also include an introduction to dream journaling and interpretation, allowing the reader to develop trust in their dreams as a spiritual source of healing and inner guidance.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1844097560
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 400
Book Description
An exploration of dreams as a spiritual source of healing and inner guidance for your health and well-being • 2018 Nautilus Silver Award • Shares stories--confirmed by pathology reports--from subjects in medical research projects whose dreams diagnosed illness and helped heal their lives • Explores medical studies and ongoing research on the diagnostic power of precognitive dreams, including Dr. Burk’s own medical research • Includes an introduction to dream journaling and interpretation techniques Your dreams can provide inner guidance filled with life-saving information. Since ancient Egypt and Greece, people have relied on the art of dreaming to diagnose illness and get answers to personal life challenges. Now, dreams are making a grand reappearance in the medical arena as recent scientific research and medical pathology reports validate the diagnostic abilities of precognitive dreams. Are we stepping back into the future as modern medical tests show dreams can be early warning signs of cancer and other diseases? Showcasing the important role of dreams and their power to detect and heal illness, Dr. Larry Burk and Kathleen O’Keefe-Kanavos share amazing research and true stories of physical and emotional healings triggered by dreams. The authors explore medical studies and ongoing research on the diagnostic power of precognitive dreams, including Dr. Burk’s own research on dreams that come true and can be medically validated. They share detailed stories--all confirmed by pathology reports--from subjects in medical research projects whose dreams diagnosed illness and helped heal their lives, including Kathleen’s own story as a three-time breast cancer survivor whose dreams diagnosed her cancer even when it was missed by her doctors. Alongside these stories of survival and faith, the authors also include an introduction to dream journaling and interpretation, allowing the reader to develop trust in their dreams as a spiritual source of healing and inner guidance.
Shaped by Love
Author: Dan Nixon
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780578332161
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
Book Description
No matter how much we have been loved or desired a love that we never received, it is God's love that we must allow to truly shape our lives. Throughout this book, my hope is that you will be challenged to address barriers in your life that may have caused you to question if God really loves you. As you read through the chapters, it will take you on a path of self-discovery to face difficult topics. It then encourages us to open our hearts and begin to allow the unconditional love and grace of the Father to shape us. This is a book that challenges the reader, the church, and Christians to rethink and graduate to a deeper level of understanding of the simple truth that, God is love! God loves ALL people, and NOTHING can separate us from His love. Allow His unconditional love to shape your life and the lives of others.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780578332161
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
Book Description
No matter how much we have been loved or desired a love that we never received, it is God's love that we must allow to truly shape our lives. Throughout this book, my hope is that you will be challenged to address barriers in your life that may have caused you to question if God really loves you. As you read through the chapters, it will take you on a path of self-discovery to face difficult topics. It then encourages us to open our hearts and begin to allow the unconditional love and grace of the Father to shape us. This is a book that challenges the reader, the church, and Christians to rethink and graduate to a deeper level of understanding of the simple truth that, God is love! God loves ALL people, and NOTHING can separate us from His love. Allow His unconditional love to shape your life and the lives of others.
I'm Not Who You Think I Am
Author: Peg Kehret
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0141312378
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 162
Book Description
Who is the strange woman in the white car watching Ginger? She appears at Ginger's birthday party, at her school, and in front of her house, but Ginger has never met her before. When she confronts Ginger, she reveals a secret that will change Ginger's life. And when the woman's confrontations become threatening, Ginger is forced into a crisis of loyalty and honor—a crisis from which her family might never recover.
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0141312378
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 162
Book Description
Who is the strange woman in the white car watching Ginger? She appears at Ginger's birthday party, at her school, and in front of her house, but Ginger has never met her before. When she confronts Ginger, she reveals a secret that will change Ginger's life. And when the woman's confrontations become threatening, Ginger is forced into a crisis of loyalty and honor—a crisis from which her family might never recover.
The Thursday Murder Club
Author: Richard Osman
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1984880985
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 385
Book Description
Soon to be a Major Motion Picture The first installment in the beloved and New York Times bestselling series from Richard Osman, also author of We Solve Murders Four septuagenarians with a few tricks up their sleeves A female cop with her first big case A brutal murder Welcome to... THE THURSDAY MURDER CLUB In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet weekly in the Jigsaw Room to discuss unsolved crimes; together they call themselves the Thursday Murder Club. When a local developer is found dead with a mysterious photograph left next to the body, the Thursday Murder Club suddenly find themselves in the middle of their first live case. As the bodies begin to pile up, can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer, before it's too late? “Witty, endearing and greatly entertaining.” —Wall Street Journal
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1984880985
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 385
Book Description
Soon to be a Major Motion Picture The first installment in the beloved and New York Times bestselling series from Richard Osman, also author of We Solve Murders Four septuagenarians with a few tricks up their sleeves A female cop with her first big case A brutal murder Welcome to... THE THURSDAY MURDER CLUB In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet weekly in the Jigsaw Room to discuss unsolved crimes; together they call themselves the Thursday Murder Club. When a local developer is found dead with a mysterious photograph left next to the body, the Thursday Murder Club suddenly find themselves in the middle of their first live case. As the bodies begin to pile up, can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer, before it's too late? “Witty, endearing and greatly entertaining.” —Wall Street Journal
I'm Supposed to Protect You from All This
Author: Nadja Spiegelman
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101627751
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 386
Book Description
A Vogue Best Book of the Year "What Ferrante did for female friends—exploring the tumult and complexity their relationships could hold—Spiegelman sets out to do for mothers and daughters. She’s essentially written My Brilliant Mom." —Slate A memoir of mothers and daughters—and mothers as daughters—traced through four generations, from Paris to New York and back again. For a long time, Nadja Spiegelman believed her mother was a fairy. More than her famous father, Maus creator Art Spiegelman, and even more than most mothers, hers—French-born New Yorker art director Françoise Mouly—exerted a force over reality that was both dazzling and daunting. As Nadja’s body changed and “began to whisper to the adults around me in a language I did not understand,” their relationship grew tense. Unwittingly, they were replaying a drama from her mother’s past, a drama Nadja sensed but had never been told. Then, after college, her mother suddenly opened up to her. Françoise recounted her turbulent adolescence caught between a volatile mother and a playboy father, one of the first plastic surgeons in France. The weight of the difficult stories she told her daughter shifted the balance between them. It had taken an ocean to allow Françoise the distance to become her own person. At about the same age, Nadja made the journey in reverse, moving to Paris determined to get to know the woman her mother had fled. Her grandmother’s memories contradicted her mother’s at nearly every turn, but beneath them lay a difficult history of her own. Nadja emerged with a deeper understanding of how each generation reshapes the past in order to forge ahead, their narratives both weapon and defense, eternally in conflict. Every reader will recognize herself and her family in I'm Supposed to Protect You From All This, a gorgeous and heartbreaking memoir that helps us to see why sometimes those who love us best hurt us most.
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101627751
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 386
Book Description
A Vogue Best Book of the Year "What Ferrante did for female friends—exploring the tumult and complexity their relationships could hold—Spiegelman sets out to do for mothers and daughters. She’s essentially written My Brilliant Mom." —Slate A memoir of mothers and daughters—and mothers as daughters—traced through four generations, from Paris to New York and back again. For a long time, Nadja Spiegelman believed her mother was a fairy. More than her famous father, Maus creator Art Spiegelman, and even more than most mothers, hers—French-born New Yorker art director Françoise Mouly—exerted a force over reality that was both dazzling and daunting. As Nadja’s body changed and “began to whisper to the adults around me in a language I did not understand,” their relationship grew tense. Unwittingly, they were replaying a drama from her mother’s past, a drama Nadja sensed but had never been told. Then, after college, her mother suddenly opened up to her. Françoise recounted her turbulent adolescence caught between a volatile mother and a playboy father, one of the first plastic surgeons in France. The weight of the difficult stories she told her daughter shifted the balance between them. It had taken an ocean to allow Françoise the distance to become her own person. At about the same age, Nadja made the journey in reverse, moving to Paris determined to get to know the woman her mother had fled. Her grandmother’s memories contradicted her mother’s at nearly every turn, but beneath them lay a difficult history of her own. Nadja emerged with a deeper understanding of how each generation reshapes the past in order to forge ahead, their narratives both weapon and defense, eternally in conflict. Every reader will recognize herself and her family in I'm Supposed to Protect You From All This, a gorgeous and heartbreaking memoir that helps us to see why sometimes those who love us best hurt us most.
I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die
Author: Sarah J. Robinson
Publisher: WaterBrook
ISBN: 0593193539
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 257
Book Description
A compassionate, shame-free guide for your darkest days “A one-of-a-kind book . . . to read for yourself or give to a struggling friend or loved one without the fear that depression and suicidal thoughts will be minimized, medicalized or over-spiritualized.”—Kay Warren, cofounder of Saddleback Church What happens when loving Jesus doesn’t cure you of depression, anxiety, or suicidal thoughts? You might be crushed by shame over your mental illness, only to be told by well-meaning Christians to “choose joy” and “pray more.” So you beg God to take away the pain, but nothing eases the ache inside. As darkness lingers and color drains from your world, you’re left wondering if God has abandoned you. You just want a way out. But there’s hope. In I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die, Sarah J. Robinson offers a healthy, practical, and shame-free guide for Christians struggling with mental illness. With unflinching honesty, Sarah shares her story of battling depression and fighting to stay alive despite toxic theology that made her afraid to seek help outside the church. Pairing her own story with scriptural insights, mental health research, and simple practices, Sarah helps you reconnect with the God who is present in our deepest anguish and discover that you are worth everything it takes to get better. Beautifully written and full of hard-won wisdom, I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die offers a path toward a rich, hope-filled life in Christ, even when healing doesn’t look like what you expect.
Publisher: WaterBrook
ISBN: 0593193539
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 257
Book Description
A compassionate, shame-free guide for your darkest days “A one-of-a-kind book . . . to read for yourself or give to a struggling friend or loved one without the fear that depression and suicidal thoughts will be minimized, medicalized or over-spiritualized.”—Kay Warren, cofounder of Saddleback Church What happens when loving Jesus doesn’t cure you of depression, anxiety, or suicidal thoughts? You might be crushed by shame over your mental illness, only to be told by well-meaning Christians to “choose joy” and “pray more.” So you beg God to take away the pain, but nothing eases the ache inside. As darkness lingers and color drains from your world, you’re left wondering if God has abandoned you. You just want a way out. But there’s hope. In I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die, Sarah J. Robinson offers a healthy, practical, and shame-free guide for Christians struggling with mental illness. With unflinching honesty, Sarah shares her story of battling depression and fighting to stay alive despite toxic theology that made her afraid to seek help outside the church. Pairing her own story with scriptural insights, mental health research, and simple practices, Sarah helps you reconnect with the God who is present in our deepest anguish and discover that you are worth everything it takes to get better. Beautifully written and full of hard-won wisdom, I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die offers a path toward a rich, hope-filled life in Christ, even when healing doesn’t look like what you expect.
I Know This Much Is True
Author: Wally Lamb
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780060391621
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 884
Book Description
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.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780060391621
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 884
Book Description
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.