Margolyes is one of Britain’s most prolific actors, whose career began with the Cambridge Footlights in one of its more legendary phases, not that she has any sentimentality about it. “I am now better known for my naughty stories than almost anything else,” she writes, a little regretfully, although that then sparks a thought about the hilarity of penises (“Such an odd dangler to have”). This convinced me Somerville College would not be the place for me”), and then, many decades later, acclimatising to global fandom after playing Professor Sprout in the Harry Potter films (“Usually when Jews are mobbed in Lithuania, it’s to kill them, but this was because of Harry Potter”). ‘DAMN GOOD POET,’ she boomed, slapping her thigh like a principal boy in pantomime. I did like Milton and could honestly say so.

When I was reading it this book on a train, a stranger asked if I was OK because I was crying with laughter at Margolyes’s description of her interview to study English literature at Oxford (“‘Do you like Milton?’ the tutor barked. Readers everywhere will continue to be moved by this joyous, heart-wrenching, mystical, exquisitely written, and profoundly human masterpiece.I ’m quite sure you picked up this book hoping I’d make you laugh,” Miriam Margolyes writes in her memoir, This Much Is True. I KNOW THIS MUCH IS TRUE is a masterfully told story of alienation and connection, power and abuse, devastation and renewal. Dominick's journey is illuminated, and further complicated, by a fable-like account of his grandfather Domenico Onofrio Tempesta's life.Īs Dominick continues to face the pain of loss, he must rebuild himself in the shadow of his twin, and come to grips with his anger in order to forgive. He attempts to come to terms with the desire to rescue his brother and fears about his own psychological health and his inability to love. The two brothers share a family history that includes an adoptive father, Ray, and a long-suffering mother, Concettina, a timid woman with a harelip and a huge desire to protect her troubled son, Thomas, as the demons of his schizophrenia become increasingly apparent.īut as Thomas commits an act which sends him to strict confinement for the mentally ill, Dominick's life spins even further out of control.

In this #1 New York Times bestseller, Lamb weaves the story of Dominick Birdsey, whose entire life has been shaped by anger and fear, by the paranoid schizophrenic twin brother that he deeply loves and resents. Around the world, millions of readers have been captivated by Wally Lamb's incredible talent in representing the lost and the lonely.

Author of i know this much is true