by Lamb, Wally
I teach American history now, at the Wequonnoc School—a different kind of history than Mr. LoPresto used to teach. My students balk at tests, complain that I give too much work, and learn, I like to think, what I have learned: that power, wrongly used, defeats the oppressor as well as the oppressed. More than anyone, it was my maternal grandfather, Domenico Onofrio Tempesta, who taught me that. I have come, finally, to a kind of gratitude for Papa’s legacy—that troublesome document by which he tried and failed so miserably to prove his “greatness” to “Italian youth.” God—life—can be both merciful and ironic, I have come to believe. Papa approached his true worth only when he rolled that rented Dictaphone equipment onto the porch, sent home the stenographer, and retreated to the backyard to face his failures. Until he had humbled himself. Papa, I treasure your gift.
I am not a smart man, particularly, but one day, at long last, I stumbled from the dark woods of my own, and my family’s, and my country’s past, holding in my hands these truths: that love grows from the rich loam of forgiveness; that mongrels make good dogs; that the evidence of God exists in the roundness of things.
This much, at least, I’ve figured out. I know this much is true.
Acknowledgments
I am deeply grateful to Linda Chester, my literary agent and friend, and to her associate, Laurie Fox, who shares equal billing. Glinda and Dorothy in one agency: how lucky can a writer get?
I am indebted to Judith Regan, my publisher and paisana, for her loyalty, her patient trust, and her passionate response to my work. Grazie, Judith.
The following writer-compadres offered invaluable critical reaction to this novel in its many stages, and I am grateful for and humbled by the generosity of their collective response. They are: Bruce Cohen, Deborah DeFord, Joan Joffe Hall, Rick Hornung, Leslie Johnson, Terese Karmel, Ann Z. Leventhal, Pam Lewis, David Morse, Bessy Reyna, Wanda Rickerby, Ellen Zahl, and Feenie Ziner.
A novel this size is both a big, shaggy beast and a complex process requiring faith, luck, moral support, and knowledge far beyond what its author brings to it. I bow deeply to the following, each of whom—in a variety of ways—helped me to find, tell, and publish this story (and, in two cases, to retrieve it from hard-drive never-never land): Elliott Beard, Andre Becker, Bernice Bennett, Lary Bloom, Cathy Bochain, Aileen Boyle, Angelica Canales, Lawrence Carver, Lynn Castelli, Steve Courtney, Tracy Dene, Barbara Dombrowski, David Dunnack, John Ekizian, Sharon Garthwait, Douglas Hood, Gary Jaffe, Susan Kosko, Ken Lamothe, Linda Lamothe, Doreen Louie, Peter Mayock, Susan McDonough, Alice McGee, Joseph Mills, Joseph Montebello, Bob Parzych, Maryann Petyak, Pam Pfeifer, Pit Pinegar, Nancy Potter, Joanna Pulcini, Jenny Romero, Allyson Salazar, Ron Sands, Maureen Shea, Dolores Simon, Suzy Staubach, Nick Stevens, Christine Tanigawa, David Teplica, Denise Tyburski, Patrick Vitagliano Jr., Oprah Winfrey, Patricia Wolf, Shirley Woodka, Genevieve Young, the morning crew at the Sugar Shack Bakery, and my students at the Norwich Free Academy and the University of Connecticut.
I am indebted to Rita Regan, who helped me with copyediting and advice about all things Sicilian, and to Mary Ann Hall, who put Gabrielle D'Annunzio's Tales of My Native Town into my hands.
Special thanks to Ethel Mantzaris for long-standing friendship and faithful support.
Finally, I feel gratitude beyond what I can articulate to Christine Lamb, my life partner and love, who makes my writing life possible.
I acknowledge and honor the following teachers, from elementary through graduate school, each of whom encouraged excellence and nurtured creativity: Frances Heneault, Violet Shugrue, Katherine Farrell, Leona Comstock, Elizabeth Winters, Lenora Chapman, Miriam Sexton, Richard Bilda, Victor Ferry, Dorothy Cramer, Mildred Clegg, Mary English, Lois Taylor, Irene Rose, Daniel O'Neill, Dorothy Williams, James Williams, Alexander Medlicott, Alan Driscoll, Gabriel Herring, Frances Leta, Wayne Diederich, Joan Joffe Hall, Gordon Weaver, and Gladys Swan.
I was fortunate to have the support of the following writer-friendly institutions and organizations during the writing of this novel: the Norwich Free Academy, the Willimantic, Connecticut, Public Library, the Homer D. Babbidge Library, the University of Connecticut, and the Connecticut Commission on the Arts.
This novel would not have come into existence without the generous support and validation of the National Endowment for the Arts.
A List of Sources Consulted
Baker, Russell. Growing Up. New York: New American Library, 1982.
Barron, D. S. “Once There Were Two: Twins Are Bound Together Forever, Even When One of Them Dies—Stories from the Lone Twin Network.” Health, September 1996, pp. 84–90.
Bettelheim, Bruno. The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales. New York: Vintage Books, 1989.
Burlingham, Dorothy. Twins: A Study of Three Pairs of Identical Twins. New York: International Universities Press, 1952.
Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Princeton: Princeton University Press/Bollingen, 1972.
Cohen, David Steven, ed. America: The Dream of My Life—Selections from the Federal Writers’ Project’s New Jersey Ethnic Survey. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1990.
D’Annunzio, Gabriele. Tales of My Native Town, trans. Rafael Mantelline. Garden City, N.J.: Doubleday, Page and Co., 1920.
DeSio, Paul. Ricordiamo: The Italian-Americans of Norwich. Norwich, Conn.: Columbus Book Committee, 1992.
DiStasi, Lawrence. Mal Occhio (Evil Eye): The Underside of Vision. San Francisco: North Point Press, 1981.
Dittmar, Trudy. “Cows, Arrogance, the Nature of Things” in The Pushcart Prize XXI: Best of the Small Presses, ed. Bill Henderson. Wainscott, N.Y.: Pushcart Press, 1996. (Originally published in North American Review.)
Donahue, Bruce. Case Study: The Pequot War, 1636–1638. Norwich, Conn.: Norwich Free Academy History Department, 1996
Gottesman, Irving L., James Shields, and Paul Meehl. Schizophrenia and Genetics: A Twin Study Vantage Point. New York: Academic Press, 1972.
Hagedorn, Judy W., and Janet Kizziar. Gemini: The Psychology and Phenomenon of Twins. Anderson, S.C.: Droke House/Hallux, 1974.
Holy Bible—Saint Joseph “New Catholic Edition.” New York: Catholic Book Publishing Company, 1962.
Keefe, Richard S.E., and Philip D. Harvey. Understanding Schizophrenia: A Guide to the New Research on Causes and Treatment. New York: Free Press, 1994.
Kelly, Sean, and Rosemary Rogers. Saints Preserve Us! New York: Random House, 1993.
Kleinfelder, Rita Lang. When We Were Young: A Baby-Boomer Yearbook. New York: Prentice Hall, 1993.
Koch, Helen. Twins and Twin Relations. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966.
Lang, Joel. “Reversals of Fortune.” Northeast: The Hartford Courant Magazine 14 August 1994, pp. 12–19.
Leick, Nini, and Marianne Davidsen-Nielsen. Healing Pain: Attachment, Loss, and Grief Therapy. London: Tavistock/Routledge, 1991.
Levi-Strauss, Claude. Myth and Meaning. New York: Schocken Books, 1979.
Lytton, Hugh. Parent-Child Interaction: The Socialization Process Observed in Twin and Singleton Families. New York: Plenum Press, 1980.
Morrison, Joan, and Charlotte Fox Zabusky. American Mosaic: The Immigrant Experience in the Words of Those Who Lived It. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1980.
Pearson, Carol S. The Hero Within: Six Archetypes We Live By. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1986.
Rutherford, Jonathan. Men’s Silences: Predicaments in Masculinity. London: Routledge, 1992.
Schave, Barbara, and Janet Ciriello. Identity and Intimacy in Twins. New York: Praeger, 1983.
Scheinfeld, Amram. Twins and Supertwins. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1967.
Stave, Bruce, John F. Sutherland, with Aldo Salerno. From the Old Country: An Oral History of European Migration to America. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1994.
Talese, Gay. Unto the Sons. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992.
Van Dusen, Albert E. Connecticut: A Fully Illustr
ated History of the State from the Seventeenth Century to the Present. New York: Random House, 1961.
Waldman, Hillary, Daniel P. Jones, David Lightman, and Kenton Robinson. “Return of the Natives: the Northeast’s Indians Rise Again,” an eight-part series in the Hartford Courant 22–30 May 1994.
Wright, Lawrence. “A Reporter at Large: Double Mystery.” The New Yorker 7 August 1995, pp. 44–62.
Zimmer, Heinrich. The King and the Corpse: Tales of the Soul’s Conquest of Evil, ed. Joseph Campbell. Princeton: Princeton University Press/Bollingen, 1993.
About the Author
WALLY LAMB’S first novel She’s Come Undone received rave reviews when it was published in 1992. The Book was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Awards’ Art Seidenbaum Prize for First Fiction and was named as one of the most notable books of the year by numerous publications, including The New York Times Book Review and People magazine. A graduate of the Vermont College MFA in Writing program, Lamb currently teaches at the University of Connecticut. He is the recipient of an NEA grant for fiction and a Missouri Review William Peden fiction prize winner. A nationally honored teacher of writing, he lives in Connecticut with his wife and their three sons.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.
Credits
Cover based on an original design by David High / High Design
Cover Photograph © by David Teplica, M.D., MFA, courtesy The Collected Image,
Evanston, Ill, The Carson Group, Denver, CO.
Copyright
A hardcover edition of this book was published in 1998 by ReganBooks, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
This novel is a work of fiction. Any references to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and authenticity. Other names, characters, places, and incidents portrayed herein are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally.
Portions of I Know This Much Is True, some in slightly or substantially different versions, have appeared in the following publications: Image: A Journal of the Arts and Religion, Missouri Review, Northeast Magazine, and USA Weekend.
I KNOW THIS MUCH IS TRUE. Copyright © 1998 by Wally Lamb. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
“Who Is Wally Lamb?” copyright © 2001 by Wally Lamb. All rights reserved.
EPub Edition June 2013 ISBN 9780061745799
Version 12132013
First HarperPerennial edition published in 1999.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
* * *
* “Being poor is no excuse for being filthy.” —NF
* * *
* “The world is made of stairs: there are those who go up and those who go down.” —NF
* * *
* “I don’t understand a frigging thing you’re saying, Domenico.” (approx.) —NF
* * *
** “Fucking! Fucking!” —NF
* * *
*”Being poor is no excuse for being filthy.”—NF
* * *
* “If you have gunpowder, shoot!” —NF
* * *
* ”The Little Queen” —NF
* * *
* The tongue has no bones but can break a man’s back! —NF
* * *
*Duplex house —NF
* * *
* ”Better single than unhappily married.” Translator’s note: The original sentence, partially crossed out, reads “Better to die single than to have to fuck a monkey.”
—NF
* * *
* “An old hen makes the best soup.” —NF
** Roughly, “Cook squash any way you like, but it’s still squash.” —NF
Dedication
This one is for two strong women:
Joan Joffe Hall and Shirley Woodka
Ghost of a Chance
You see a man
trying to think.
You want to say
to everything:
Keep off! Give him room!
But you only watch,
terrified
the old consolations
will get him at last
like a fish
half-dead from flopping
and almost crawling
across the shingle,
almost breathing
the raw, agonizing
air
till a wave
pulls it back blind into the triumphant
sea.
—Adrienne Rich
Contents
Dedication
Ghost of a Chance
Prologue: Rope-Skipping Girl
Gualtiero Agnello
Part I: Art and Service
Chapter One
Annie Oh
Chapter Two
Orion Oh
Chapter Three
Annie Oh
Chapter Four
Orion Oh
Chapter Five
Annie Oh
Chapter Six
Orion Oh
Chapter Seven
Annie Oh
Chapter Eight
Orion Oh
Chapter Nine
Annie Oh
Part II: Mercy
Chapter Ten
Ruth Fletcher
Part III: Family
Chapter Eleven
Andrew Oh
Chapter Twelve
Marissa Oh
Chapter Thirteen
Ariane Oh
Chapter Fourteen
Orion Oh
Chapter Fifteen
Andrew Oh
Chapter Sixteen
Orion Oh
Chapter Seventeen
Andrew Oh
Chapter Eighteen
Orion Oh
Part IV: A Wedding
Chapter Nineteen
Kent Kelly
Chapter Twenty
Annie Oh
Chapter Twenty-One
Kent Kelly
Chapter Twenty-Two
Annie Oh
Chapter Twenty-Three
Kent Kelly
Chapter Twenty-Four
Andrew Oh
Chapter Twenty-Five
Annie Oh
Chapter Twenty-Six
Andrew Oh
Part V: Three Years Later
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Orion Oh
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Orion Oh
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Orion Oh
Tell Your Friends!
Gratitude
A Note from Wally Lamb
About the Author
Credits
Copyright
Prologue
Rope-Skipping Girl
Gualtiero Agnello
August 2009
I understand there was some controversy about the coroner’s ruling concerning Josephus Jones’s death. What do you think, Mr. Agnello? Did he die accidentally or was he murdered?”
“Murdered? I can’t really say for sure, Miss Arnofsky, but I have my suspicions. The black community was convinced that’s what it was. Two Negro brothers living down at that cottage with a white woman? That would have been intolerable for some people back then.”
“White people, you mean.”
“Yes, that’s right. When I got the job as director of the Statler Museum and moved my family to Three Rivers, I remember being surprised by the rumors that a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan was active here. And it’
s always seemed unlikely to me that Joe Jones would have tripped and fallen headfirst into a narrow well that he would have been very much aware of. A well that he would have drawn water from, after all. But if a crime had been committed, it was never investigated as such. So who’s to say? The only thing I was sure of was that Joe was a uniquely talented painter. Unfortunately, I was the only one at the time who could see that. Of course now, long after his death, the art world has caught up with his brilliance and made him highly collectible. It’s sad—tragic, really. There’s no telling what he might have achieved if he had lived into his forties and fifties. But that was not to be.”
I’m upstairs in my studio, talking to this curly-haired, pear-shaped Patrice Arnofsky. When she called last week, she’d explained that she was a writer for an occasional series which profiled the state’s prominent artists in Connecticut magazine. They had already run stories on Sol LeWitt, Paul Cadmus, and the illustrator Wendell Minor, she said. Now she’d been assigned a posthumous profile of Josephus Jones in conjunction with a show that was opening at the American Folk Art Museum. “I understand that you were the only curator in his lifetime to have awarded him a show of his work,” she’d said. I’d told her that was correct. Agreed to talk with her about my remembrances of Joe. And so, a week later, here we are.