From Amazon ~ Journalist Pogrebin explores in a palatable, nonscholarly format some of the sticky issues of identity that accompany being a twin. Enjoying an extreme intimacy from embryo to adulthood, twins, especially identical, achieve a unique, somewhat exclusive self-sufficiency that can be comforting and enriching as well as stifling and restricting. Pogrebin, whose own twin, Robin, grew less needy for the other's presence as they grew older, interviews numerous twins in various walks of life to probe the source and stages of their emotional development, from football stars Tiki and Ronde Barber to a pair of 86-year-olds who were operated on by Dr. Mengele at Auschwitz. Some of the recurrent topics that Pogrebin explores include the sense of not needing other people as much as twins need each other, thus making it harder to find intimacy outside of the duo; feeling jilted when the other finds a partner or spouse (anybody who marries a twin, asserts one, has to understand that they're marrying two people); dealing with the amplified competition and constant comparison; parental favoritism; and the importance of establishing a distinct identity from the other. Touching on timely medical topics such as the risky business of multiple births, especially by in vitro fertilization, and recent discoveries in DNA research, Pogrebin's personal journey will prove helpful to other twins.I'm not a twin nor do we have twins in our family ... but it sounded like an interesting topic.
The writing style was okay, not overly exciting. At times, the author provides some scientific information, when tends to read like a textbook. The writing was better with the personal stories. You can feel her pain because her twin, Robin, needs some space.
Overall, I'd recommend this book. It's a subject I didn't know anything about, wasn't really interested in ... but I found that it kept my attention and I learned a lot about.
Are there any twins in your family?
My dad and his brother were mirror twins. My dad was left handed, his brother was right. My dad was straight and his brother was gay. I know someone else who father and brother were twins - exact same thing. Pretty weird. I always wanted to find a good book about the Dion Quintuplets, now that was a weird situation!
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