Ocean City Free Public Library Book Blog

I have to give Wally Lamb some credit - the man certainly has an almost athletic sense of endurance to constantly keep churning out 600+ page novels. It's hard to keep a reader's attention for that long. Lamb almost managed to keep mine for the entire novel - I started skimming on certain sections because I knew that they weren't *really* that relevant to the direct plot line. However, that being said, I really enjoyed this one, so much so that I managed to finish it in the course of a weekend, which is pretty good for me. Anyway, the novel centers on Caelum Quirk, an English teacher, and his wife Maureen, who unfortunately happens to work at Columbine High School on the day when Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris commit the atrocious mass-shooting. Maureen survives, but becomes a shell of her old self. In an effort to help Maureen recover psychologically, the two move back to Caelum's old family farm in Connecticut. A lot of stuff happens at this point - Caelum redis...

This epic 800+ page novel deals with the dual plights of twin brothers - one with schizophrenia and one without. Domenick has spent the majority of his life protecting and simultaneously hating his brother Thomas because of his disease, to the point where his own life is nearly destroyed. The narrative is told through flashbacks and also features segments of the twins' grandfather's memoirs (and though he died before their birth he, predictably enough, has foreshadowed a lot of the novel's present). The themes of love, loss, familial obligation and personal responsibility are boundless here. Throughout the book, you're not really sure which brother you pity more and though Lamb probably could have cut out about 100 pages or so, it was still a compelling read.