A mémoire.

Kim and Tim Powers are twins, best friends and like their older brother, gay. But when the younger Tim has a breakdown while at college things change between the two boys, and they begin to hate with almost the same intensity that they still love each other, their differences pushing them apart as Tim becomes a suicidal drunk and Kim settles into a stable relationship with his partner.

But when they are in their late twenties, a few weeks after a botched suicide attempt, Tim goes missing Kim is distruaght. Worried for Tim's life Kim spends a weekend searching for his lost twin, the only clues he has to Tim's possible whereabouts a succession of eloquent letters Tim had written him over the years. In the belief that Tim has gone back to where his troubles started Kim in his search leaves Manhattan and flies to Texas and their old college, Austin. There Kim meets a lonely twenty year student old who appoints himself as Kim's aid in the search for Tim.

As Kim narrates the series of events of that fearful weekend he steadily fills in all the details of their upbringing from his earliest memories: their mother's early death, the nervous breakdowns, their coming out as gay, the rape of a best friend, the rift that broke them apart as much as drew them together.

Kim Powers write with an eye for detail and with an openness and frankness in this personal account of his and Tim's life. It is at times painful, and Kim does not spare himself in the telling of his story. The conclusion is unexpected, sad and moving, yet Kim manages to find something positive from it all.

I found this a fascinating account, although despite that there were a few passages where the author failed to keep me riveted and I found my mind wandering, especially in the early parts of the book. I felt too that the account bypassed many of the individuals in their lives; with the exception of Stan, the young student who helps Kim, most are sidelined. For example, of Jess, Kim's partner of many years, there is only the occasionally mention, and we learn little or nothing about him or their relationship. But it is nonetheless an enlightening true life account. ( )

Kim Powers makes the reader feel what its like to be a twin, intimately connected to a person by accident of birth and raising but separate enough to be unable to save the other half of yourself. Powers recounts his life with family in flashbacks, as the hours tick by in his desperate search for his missing twin whom he fears is dead or dying. An unforgettable tale of sibling love. ( )