One and the Same

Abigail Pogrebin, an identical twin, examines "twinness" in every way possible. She mixes her own experiences with those of others into an engaging exploration of heredity and psychology. Her book purports to include her answer to the most common question people ask her: "What was it like to have grown up with an exact likeness?" She mentions some scientific studies, but her own ideas fill most of the discussion. Narrator Justine Eyre's comfortable manner makes her seem like the author talking. She sometimes assumes a silliness appropriate to a light topic but can morph into a serious mode for an academic discussion, for example, of twin dependency or competition. In the interviews, Eyre individualizes the various characters by giving each one a hasty personality. J.A.H. (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine

August 24, 2009
Journalist Pogrebin (Stars of David
) 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, New York Times
reporer 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 superficially 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, but is not the end word on the subject.