I Know This Much Is True

By: Wally Lamb

Narrated by: Ken Howard

Length: 5 hrs and 42 mins

Publisher's summary

Identical twins Dominick and Thomas Birdsey were born in the waning moments of 1949 and the opening minutes of 1950. Now at 40, Dominick's entire life has been compromised and constricted by anger and fear, by the paranoid schizophrenic twin brother he both loves and resents, and by the past they shared with their adoptive father, Ray, a spit-and polish ex-Navy man, and their long-suffering mother, Concettina. The brothers' relationship undergoes the ultimate test when Thomas commits an unthinkable act that threatens the tenuous balance of both his and Dominick's lives. Wally Lamb's long awaited follow-up to the critically acclaimed novel She's Come Undone is narrated by Tony Award-winning actor Ken Howard.

(P) and ©1998 HarperCollins Publishers Inc., All Rights Reserved, Harper Audio, A Division of HarperCollins Publishers

Critic reviews

Publishers Weekly Listen Up Award: Best Audio of 1998, Fiction

"This award-winning Broadway stalwart here shows himself to be as adept behind the mike as behind the footlights." (AudioFile)

LOVED THIS BOOK - Very moving

This book was great. Very moving and personal. Great character development and narration. You won't be disappointed

Bad recording

I could hear a faint voice in the background towards the end of the book which was very off-putting. Narrator was excellent. Pity it is a condensed version.

Good story line

I enjoyed the story, characters and depiction of dealing with mental illness from all aspects of those affected.
Problem I had with the audible portion is there was background voices on the recording. Very slight but enough to distract

Not my favorite Wally Lamb

Any additional comments?

I love anything by Wally Lamb, so I was excited to give this a listen. Interesting story, but could tell a lot was missing, due to this being the abridged version. Also, the voice recording threw me off a bit. I could occasionally hear people talking in the background of the narrator, which made me think I was hearing voices ;)

4 out of 5 only because it was abridged

This book was great. My first experience with Wally Lamb's writing, but not the last.

Loved the story- voice echo in background detracted at times

The story is beautiful, the narrators voice is splendid, but the echo/reverberations of his rich deep voice detract at times.

Background noise distracting

Sounded like the reader was in a room with other readers reading different books. Was weird to hear the soft background noise. I’d heard great things about the book but only found it to be “good”.... maybe this one is better read than listened to?

Well done performance, only half the story

Didn't realize when I purchased the Audio book that it does not include an entire story within the story. Really well done, but you may need to purchase the actual book to get the entire story.

Can someone from Audible please comment on this?

I just finished this. When I read reviews on Goodreads I realized that this was a hugely abridged version. It is unethical for Audible to not clearly mark that this is an abridged version. Besides that, I didn’t really care for the audiobook. I wanted to like it but I didn’t care for the narrator and was confused as to whether the homophobia and misogyny in the story was condoned by the author or not. Also as the friend of many disabled people and some schizophrenic people I wonder whether the story has a tired negative trope about mental illness.

A favorite

Excellent storytelling and some of the best narration on Audible. I’ll look for more books by both this author and the narrator. The only complaint I have is that another voice is heard softly in the background. I didn’t hear it the whole time but for the last hour or so it sounds like another man is speaking in the background and it’s an unwelcome distraction. If Audible Curran’s this up, this audiobook will be perfect.