Praise for Twinless Twin: A Novel

“Reader beware; this amazing first novel is haunted, not just by mysterious creatures in the Appalachian deep woods, but by enduring humans facing mortality all around them - births, deaths, horrible accidents and even more horrible cruelty from within their own kit and kin. It’s like a surreal Southern fever dream from which no one can awake, yet in the end they find hope in the fractured hearts of others, and in items that can fit in the palm of your hand; coins, teeth, a pocketwatch, a railroad spike, a rock. I loved Twinless Twin.”

—Mark Richard, author of Fishboy and House of Prayer, No. 2

“In Twinless Twin, Tuck takes us by the hand and leads us into a twilight world that exists just outside our everyday perceptions.  The mood is uncanny and the prose haunting.  His language is lyrical, engaging and emotionally precise. And the voices of his characters sing with heartbreak, joy and deep love. This is a book about a family unlike any you have ever encountered. But by the end, it's also about your own.”

—Richard Hatem, writer and producer of film and television, scriptwriter of The Mothman Prophecies

About the novel…

Twinless Twin finds a family maimed by a troubled, enigmatic son, whose unspeakable actions leave the family reeling, torn between moving on and searching for answers. Largely set in the foothills of an unnamed mountain, this insular landscape breeds rumor, legend, daydreams, and a mystery that runs deeper than the family who inhabits its woods. The book raises questions regarding culpability in the face of tragedy, and questions regarding the responsibilities of those who remain once a family has been splintered. What must be done to salvage the family and their homeplace?

A person who survives the loss of a twin sibling can be deemed a “twinless twin.” These survivors sometimes describe irrepressible, lifelong feelings of loss, guilt, and for some, a strange sense of urgency—a drive to live two lives in one. Others feel their missing twin lingers as a kind of invisible companion. For the novel’s central character, it’s as if the initial tragedy of the lost child reverberates through him and ripples through the rest of the family and beyond. Is this the key to unlocking the mystery of this haunted or perhaps ill-fated young man?