This novel, Lamb's second, came out ten years ago, and I never got around to reading it. But over Christmas, I spied it in a friend's bookshelf and borrowed it. I had liked Lamb's first book, "She's Come Undone," because of his emphasis on psychological growth in his characters.
This second novel covers the same territory, showing the main character's growth from childhood to middle-age, embodying the uplifting message that humans are capable of substantial changes in attitude at any age. This novel is narrated by Dominick, who has a twin brother, Thomas. Dominick's dominant emotion is anger, and his brother's is sweetness. So Dominick is aligned with his stepfather, "the last of the genuine tough guys," who fought in both WWII and Korea, and thinks all generations since his are full of spoiled weaklings. He regularly terrorizes his wife and kids, is a petty tyrant that they all tiptoe around. But he's easier on Dominick, because D. imitates his toughness, his anger. And so he reinforces the behavior.
Thomas shares his mother's sweetness, and the two have secret tea parties together after the boys come home from school. They post Dominick by the front window, to warn them when Dad is pulling into the drive. One evening, Dominick doesn't warn them, Dad finds a tea party in progress, and sweeps all the cups and tea things off the table in a rage, then takes a belt to poor Thomas to "toughen him up."
Both Dominick and Thomas grow up hating their stepfather, but that doesn't keep Dominick from blindly fashioning himself after him, imitating his angry retorts and bullying ways. It's not until he grows up and loses his child and is divorced by his wife, that he realizes he's no longer being served by that behavior. He stumbles into the world of psychiatrists and social-workers because of his brother's late-blooming mental illness, and - in trying to negotiate his brother's care, must tell his own story to his brother's psychiatrist. She ends up treating him as well, and we learn about how twins depend on each other, compensate for one another, and must eventually forge their own independence.
Dominick is a great narrator, speaking for an entire generation of baby-boomers whose anger at their parents simplistic John Wayne values erupted in the sixties, catalysing them to come up with something more fully human. Dominick realizes that he's spent untold energy avoiding the kind of sweetness that makes Thomas loveable. He finds it in himself, and finally lets it out, thereby winning back his estranged wife and eventually forgiving his stepfather.
For any reader fascinated with family dynamics and psychological growth, this book is un-put-downable. But be careful; it's thick, weighing in at almost 1000 pages. And another hesitation I had besides its length is Lamb's titles. I've had trouble remembering both of them, and I can't seem to even be able to recommend the book to friends without it right there, where I can check the title. It's a slight nitpick in an amazing work, but it's important.
And now another tidbit for readers. Yesterday I did a booktalk at a local library, and over the lunch which followed, the library director told me that their circulation figures have sharply risen as the economy has declined. There's been a surge in demand for fiction, especially.
I've always heard that movies do well in bad times, because people want escape. But how wonderful that they're turning now back to books, the source of movies and other genres of entertainment. Makes one proud to be a reader.
