Whew! About about a month ago I sat down to watch the HBO miniseries starring my main man, Mark Ruffalo, as twins in I Know This Much is True. After finishing all six installments, I really liked it and decided to bite the bullet and read the 900 page book of the same name. I figured with that much in writing, the show surely missed details, but I was wrong!
In fact, a lot of scenes were almost identical to the text, which is sort of wild. Anyways, Mark Ruffalo has double duty in this show, as he plays the Birdsey twins, Dominick and Thomas. Both the show and the book open with a pretty graphic scene involving Thomas cutting off his hand in a library. I very much had to look away when that scene happened in the show, and I definitely felt a bit queasy reading the same scene. When Dominick meets up with Thomas at the hospital he respects his wishes and tells the doctor not to re-attach his hand. Why did Thomas do this, you’re wondering? Well, for the past twenty years Thomas has been suffering with paranoid schizophrenia, and he was convinced that his sacrifice was from God to stop the Gulf War (this is 1990, by the way). Seems like an intense gesture to stop a war, mainly because his actions only scared people.
From this point on, Dominick spends a majority of the show and the book trying to get his brother out of Hatch. In the process, he connects with Thomas’ social worker, Lisa Sheffer, and Thmoas’ psychologist, Dr. Patel. Almost immediately, Dr. Patel realizes that while Thomas has been lost in his mind for quite some time, that Dominick, too, is lost. She decides to help Dominick work through his anger issues and his past. Let’s just say the Birdsey’s twins’ past is complicated. Growing up, Dominick has always felt that his late mother always loved Thomas more and he hated his often times abusive stepfather, Ray. Aside from his somewhat traumatic childhood, his wife Dessa also ends up divorcing him after the death of their infant daughter. It seems Dominick just keeps getting blow after blow sent his way, but a lot of his problems are self-made.
Also interwoven throughout the story are several alternating chapter, and one entire episode, dedicated to his grandfather and his namesake, Domenico. His mother had given Dominick he father’s life story shortly before she passed and it was Dominick’s goal to get it translated for her as a parting gift. After some unforeseen complications, he doesn’t get it back until well after the fact, and learns that his grandfather was a pretty despicable person. He also feared that at the rate his life was going, he’d end up just like him. Personally, this section of the book and the show were my least favorite portions. A part that I found more compelling was the slight obsession Dominick seemed to have with a former classmate, and now maintenance man at the facility Thomas is staying at, Ralph Drinkwater. We learn he had a twin sister get killed at a young age, and then their paths crossed a few other times over the years, but the true significance of his character is revealed late in the game in a pretty shocking way.
Without giving any major parts away, I will stop there. I really found this story in both forms very compelling and tragic. It was really interesting to hear about mental health care in the 90s, and I had to sympathize deeply with Thomas’ predicament. I could also very much relate to Dominick’s feelings of responsibility and guilt he carried throughout his life. While Mark Ruffalo was excellent as both twins, I found my favorite characters in both the show and the book were Sheffer, played by Rosie O’Donnell in the show, and Dr. Patel, played by Archie Panjabi in the show. Both women helped Dominick and Thomas out in a number of ways, and I liked the ultimate friendship that developed between the trio. This material was certainly very emotional, but it was so interesting and detailed that it was brilliant. If you can’t bring yourself to read a 900 page novel, then by all means watch the show. I promise you’ll get as much out of that experience as you would with the text.