Identical Strangers: A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited

by Elyse Schein, Paula Bernstein

Imagine a slightly different version of you walks across the room, looks you in the eye and says “hello” in your voice. You discover that she has the same birthday, the same allergies, the same tics, and the same way of laughing. Looking at this person, you are able to gaze into your own eyes and see yourself from the outside. This identical individual has the exact same DNA as you and is essentially your clone.

We don’t have to imagine.

Elyse Schein had always known she was adopted, but it wasn’t until her mid-thirties while living in Paris that she searched for her biological mother. When Elyse contacted her adoption agency, she was not prepared for the shocking, life-changing news she received: She had an identical twin sister. Elyse was then hit with another bombshell: she and her sister had been separated as infants, and for a time, had been part of a secret study on separated twins.

Paula Bernstein, a married writer and mother living in New York, also knew she was adopted, but had no inclination to find her birth mother. When she answered a call from the adoption agency one spring afternoon, Paula’s life suddenly divided into two starkly different periods: the time before and the time after she learned the truth.

As they reunite and take their tentative first steps from strangers to sisters, Paula and Elyse are also left with haunting questions surrounding their origins and their separation. They learn that the study was conducted by a pair of influential psychiatrists associated with a prestigious adoption agency. As they investigate their birth mother’s past, Paula and Elyse move closer toward solving the puzzle of their lives.

In alternating voices, Paula and Elyse write with emotional honesty about the immediate intimacy they share as twins and the wide chasm that divides them as two complete strangers. Interweaving eye-opening studies and statistics on twin science into their narrative, they offer an intelligent and heartfelt glimpse into human nature.

Identical Strangers is the amazing story of two women coming to terms with the strange and unbelievable hand fate has dealt them, an account that broadens the definition of family and provides insight into our own DNA and the singularly exceptional imprint it leaves on our lives.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Adoption, Biography, Biography Memoir, Book Club, Psychology

266 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Elyse Schein is a writer and filmmaker whose short films "Je Vole Le Bonheur" and "Private Dick" have been shown at the Telluride Film Festival and at cinemas in Prague and San Francisco. A graduate of Stony Brook University, she studied film at FAMU, Prague’s Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts. She has also worked as an English teacher, photographer, and translator. Schein lives in Brooklyn.

"Identical Strangers," the nonfiction book she co-wrote with Paula Bernstein, was published by Random House in 2007.

Reviews

[Petra X · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is about the emotions and adjustments made by a pair of identical twins adopted separately when they are reunited. Ultimately, we learn that nature is responsible for the strangest things being similar - gestures and choice of career among them - but that identical twins can be completely different in personality and that they themselves seek to find similarities between each other, even while they deny those that exist.

But not all twins are looking for more and more points where they are identical. Some do their best to deny there is anything between them other than a biological accident that resulted in them looking alike.

I was good friends and worked with an identical twin like that at one time, Laura. I didn't know she was a twin and used to get upset that the girl I went to lunch with Monday to Friday would do no more than nod her head to me if she saw me at the weekend. Eventually the story emerged. It would make a good reality show so banal, but dramatic it was.

Laura had pinched her twin's boyfriend, a divorced man, Tom, and they got married, a big white wedding, within months. Laura's identical twin Lara did not attend the wedding, she was unable to forgive her sister and the two were not on speaking terms. Laura got pregnant almost straight away, but the marriage didn't last. Before her pregnancy was even showing she had thrown Tom out because she said that he was seeing her twin on the sly. And so he was. He moved straight back in with Lara

It turned out that Tom had made Lara pregnant even before he and Laura had split up. Both sisters gave birth within three months of each other. Tom left both of them and went back to his ex-wife and their son. The twins saw each other only when they were dropping off or picking up their children from their mother who babysat them during working hours but were otherwise scarcely on speaking terms (as you might imagine).

Having the same father, the babies, girls, are half-sisters, having sisters for mothers, they are first cousins, but since the mothers DNA was 100% alike they are also, genetically, full sisters. The irony is that the little girls look almost exactly alike, and one wonders if they are doomed to repeat their mothers' awful rivalry.

The twins in the book, both of whom are Goodreads authors are the opposite to my friend and her twin. They think they are far more alike than they actually are.

Two people separated by adoption may have the same inherited processing equipment, but our brains, our reactions are modified by each event, and our thinking is necessarily a product of all our experiences. No matter how much the author twins wanted to be alike, too much water had passed under the bridge, and they are quite different. As with two artists fulfilling the same commission with the same clay but not being able to see each others work, the resulting statues will show the different vision of each. We are too much the product of our individual lives for it to be otherwise.

[Lynne · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is an relatively interesting account of identical twins who discovered each other's existence in their 30's. The first few chapters get annoying. One of the twins spends a good deal of time re-writing every event in her life in terms of being a twin. At several points, she writes "maybe I am over-analyzing this, but...". If you have to offer that introduction to the sentence, you are over-analyzing. The twins do have a difficult time adjusting to their similiarities and differences. The worst part of the book was one twin's obsession with her twin's weight. I would like to think that my third question on learning that I had a long-lost twin would not be "how much do you weigh?"

[Sharon Metcalf · Rating 3 out of 5]

Identical Strangers A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited by Elyse Schein and Paula Bernstein was an interesting and informative read. Though I'm not a twin, nor have I ever harboured some secret desire to have been one, I always find myself intrigued by the relationship between twins. Some of my favourite works of fiction have been centred around twins (think titles such as "I Know This Much Is True", "Cutting For Stone" and "I'll Give You the Sun"). My sister and I have a close relationship and often joke that we have a kind of sibling ESP, so it was no surprise for me to learn she too is intrigued by twins and she recommended this title as one I might enjoy.

Elyse and Paula deliver their story in alternate voices. Adopted to separate families as babies, they tell of their reactions to learning they had a twin, share their feelings and emotions at being reunited soon after this discovery at the age of 33. They detailed their investigation into the reasons for their separation, and the outcome of their search for their biological mother. Theirs was an interesting, and I imagine distressing story for all involved. Although I felt for them I was not especially emotional about their plight. Did I think it was unethical for them to be separated as part of a study into Nature versus Nurture? Of course I did and I could not believe that neither set of adoptive parents was informed of the existence of a twin, nor offered the chance to adopt both girls. Like them I was happy they had each had relatively good lives but you can't help wondering at how their lives might have been under different circumstances. As for similarities despite their separation, it was clear there were many but they were also quite different in a number of ways. They'd each suffered depression in their teens, had each felt a loss they couldn't explain. When reunited they discovered they had lead similar lives, had chosen similar careers and quite frankly freaked each other out with their similar mannerisms and expressions. If I'm honest, I possibly enjoyed the research about other separated twins as much if not more than their own story. This was an easy read and provided me with some interesting case studies to (Google) read up on - such as the Jim twins with their almost impossible to believe similarities, and the Jewish and Nazi twins.

[Emma Deplores Goodreads Censorship · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars

An interesting memoir of two women who found out in their 30s that they were identical twins—separated at birth by their adoption agency and placed with different families, neither of which was told that their new daughter was a twin. The discovery of their connection sent them on a personal journey of connection with one another, as well as seeking information about their birth mother and the reasons the agency chose to separate them. Elyse Schein and Paula Bernstein wrote the memoir together in frequently alternating sections of roughly equal length, each sharing her own feelings and views on events.

It’s a really interesting story, and the authors are good storytellers who kept me wanting to know what happens next. They open up a lot of themselves in this book, including thoughts and feelings that don’t make them look good, as they explore the complications of being twins: Paula in particular has reservations about the whole thing (Elyse was the one doing the searching, Paula the one who was found), but they both struggle with sometimes difficult communication, with figuring out what their expectations should be for each other, with the weirdness of meeting someone else who shares their body. This is exacerbated by the fact that both have body issues and have struggled with eating disorders, but they also find themselves irritated by mundane things (in one scene, both tell each other that the other’s facial gestures seem like an uncomfortably exaggerated version of their own). Despite all that though, they do form a strong bond: they have a lot in common, and they meet each other’s families and become partners in a quest to discover the truth.

The truth, by the way, is only half-discovered by the end. Some sleuthing allows them to uncover the identity of their birth mother, but there are still many unanswered questions about their first months. When the twins were born in 1968, the agency’s consulting psychologist, Dr. Viola Bernard, apparently believed that rearing twins together was a burden on both the twins themselves and on their families, though this was very much a minority position in the psychological establishment at that time. Another researcher, Dr. Peter Neubauer, jumped on the opportunity to study child development in separated twins, without ever telling the families the purpose of the study. The authors eventually interview Neubauer and others, but are unable to get access to most of the information about the study, which is sealed until 2066. Unfortunately, this is far from the only questionable decision made by the agency—in another seemingly unfathomable choice, both babies were kept in foster care for months (in Elyse’s case, nine!) before finally being passed on to their adoptive families.

Unfortunately, while the writing is easy to read and keeps the story moving, I wouldn’t call either of the twins an exceptional writer. They include a lot of dialogue, which keeps things moving but often sounds a bit stilted (there’s no indication they were recording themselves during these events, so I’m guessing they are taking artistic license and just aren’t very good dialogue writers). They also seem to default to a binary way of thinking: though they are clearly far from experts, they write about twin psychology and history, and seem stuck for instance on the idea of a nature vs. nurture dichotomy. Researchers now know this is anything but a simple binary: people influence their environment, while the environment influences gene expression and determines what genes are even relevant. And the thing is, the authors know this. But they keep reverting to simplistic conceptions, full of confirmation bias, for instance, claiming that a particular similarity between them “proves” that this trait is genetic. Hence, a lot of discussion of the similarities between the two of them, and between other pairs of reunited twins, even when those similarities are obviously at least in part cultural (like mannerisms) or pure coincidence (another pair of reunited twins whose older brothers had the same first name).

My favorite bit on this subject was their question, “if we’d been raised by each other’s families, would I be you and you be me?” In other words, are people no more than the sum total of genetics plus environment? Perhaps the book’s most enduring question, and far more interesting than the ones they try simplistically to answer.

Meanwhile, the memoir is written in the present tense, which I always think a poor choice—among other things, it inhibits perspective on past events—but it’s particularly unfortunate here, since these events only took place a couple of years before the book was written. So they relay thoughts and opinions in the present tense, and it’s impossible to tell whether they’re simply writing about how they felt at the time, or whether they still hold that opinion today.

Finally, while I admire the authors for putting themselves out there in ways that aren’t always pretty, they have an unfortunate tendency to come across as smug, occasionally judgmental. Paula seems to view herself as the successful twin because she’s married with a kid while Elyse is single, and occasionally thinks about how she doesn’t need a sister because she has a husband, and how she never asked to be found anyway. All of which comes across especially unfortunate because Elyse seems more emotionally invested in their sisterhood, and is insecure about being single.

Elyse, on the other hand, comes across as equally smug about her bohemian lifestyle (living in a cubby in Paris and couch-surfing when visiting the U.S.), and makes a really weird comment early on about how it was important to her not to be like “the [French] suburbanites who commuted every day in order to pay for a satellite dish and a yearly six-week vacation to the south of France.” Wait, I’m sorry, a six week vacation? Every year? In other words, she’s turning up her nose at something those of us from her home country (which I assume is also the primary market for this book) can dream of only in retirement? There are also what feel like a lot of gratuitous comments complaining about her teenage nephew’s drug habit; this winds up making some sense when he dies of an overdose partway through the story, but since I went in not knowing that, these passages distracted me by violating the privacy a young person who doesn’t even seem to have an active role in her life.

In reality, I suspect a lot of what comes across as self-righteousness is actually the twins’ feeling threatened in their identities and life choices by having discovered their twinship, and feeling that they need to defend themselves against the implied attack of someone else with the same genes having made different choices. But the abovementioned present-tense lack of perspective and tendency toward easy answers means that’s not an analysis they suggest themselves. That said, while their way of being may get under my skin a bit, I do admire their honesty and plenty of readers have been unbothered.

In the end, an interesting memoir if you’re interested in stories of adoption and complicated families, and one you can read quickly. Not one I’m likely to recommend widely, though. A couple of final notes: I would be curious to read an update now (the book was published in 2007; since then, have the twins used genetic testing to find their birth father or his family?), and as always, I appreciate the inclusion of pictures!

[Virginia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating. Utterly fascinating. I could not put this book down. Although it was confusing (even through the end of the book) to keep straight the differing narratives of Elyse and Paula in my mind, I also appreciated the dual POVs. I loved the interplay of their stories with facts about twins and studies and the ongoing mystery and sleuthing regarding the conditions of their birth, their birth mother and the twin studies they were part of.

I kept alternating between anger that people could so callously separate twins on purpose just to study them and grief at the loss to the twins (and sometimes, triplets). To be taken from their birth mothers is hard enough but then to be taken from their womb-mates! I just want to weep. No one could begrudge these people the lives they eventually lived, but one cannot help but wonder at what could have been.

I highly recommend this book!

[Therese · Rating 2 out of 5]

This would have been a great article in a magazine. All the interesting stuff could have fit nicely in a few pages of smallish print. But instead it was a book. The twin's voices were fairly indistinguishable to me, and neither was a very enthralling memoirist. Reading facts about the oddities twins was sort of interesting, but I'm not sure I learned anything new.

[Arryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love a good human interest story, and this book fit the bill. It also fed my fascination with multiples that began when I became good friends with identical twins in junior high. Separated at birth and raised by two different adoptive families, Elyse Schein and Paula Bernstein are reunited nearly 35 years later. They are shocked at the physical similarities they share, but they are even more surprised at everything else they have in common--personality traits, interests, facial expressions, mannerisms, idiosyncrasies, and ambitions. The memoir is written by both sisters and provides the same story from two points of view. They have also included data from numerous studies documenting the lives of twins in search of an answer to the "nature vs. nurture" question. By the end of the book, I was awed by Elyse's and Paula's emotional journey. I, too, felt a range of emotions that spilled over during the last chapter. This memoir is well-written and I would love to see a "Part 2" somewhere down the line.

[Kimberly Dawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting story and well told!

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I happened upon this book on a "new books" table at the local Borders and was immediately drawn to it. It begins with a woman looking for information about her birth mother, and who discovers not only that she was actually a twin, separated from her sister before their respective adoptions, but also that the two children had been part of a secret study on twins. Soon she is reunited with her twin sister, and the two together embark on a project to unearth as much information as possible regarding the secret study and their participation in it.

Although it's not a particularly heavy book to read -- in fact, it reads more like an extended magazine article -- the story is quite absorbing. It proved to be quite a page-turner for me, its "truth-is-stranger-than-fiction"-type suspense keeping me up late nights, telling myself, "OK, just a few more pages and then I'll stop - I just wanna see what happens next". Who hasn't wondered, at some point in their lives, "Suppose I'm not actually who I think I am?" It's impossible to read this book without wondering, "What must that be like?"

Surprisingly, the pivotal mystery of the book, the secret study, turned out to be of somewhat less interest to me as a reader than the title and book flap would suggest. Don't get me wrong, I don't mean to say that the study is only peripheral, dealt with in a chapter or two then discarded. Rather -- and I'm struggling to find the right words here to express what I mean exactly -- I expected a more sensational tone throughout the book as the chapters provided ever more shocking revelations about the secret study, the twins' separation, and whatever else had been kept hidden.

Of course, the study does play a central role in the story, but the tone is much less what I expected. As the story goes on and the sisters begin to access information in bits and pieces, the sense of urgency becomes more blunted, and the secret study mainly functions as the engine that moves the action constantly forward. Whereas the real substance of the story is the sisters' interior journeys as the come to terms with this continual flow (sometimes a tidal wave, sometimes a trickle) of discoveries about their histories, which inevitably challenge every thing they knew about their lives, and ultimately their own sense of identity and self.

This, to me, was the most interesting part of the book. Along the way, the book also raises intriguing and confounding questions about the notion of nature-vs-nurture, many of them discussed by the authors as they proceed with their own research into studies and articles based on twin research.

What I was most impressed with in this book was how personal and honest it was. The narrative continually bounces back and forth between the two authors, with the sisters alternating the narration every few paragraphs or pages. (This is done quite well, and I didn't find it intrusive at all). But it surely couldn't have been comfortable for either of the sisters to reveal some of their doubts and fears and secret wishes and misgivings about discovering a twin and incorporating her into their lives -- especially knowing that in revealing all this to their readers, they would also be confessing them to their twin. And yet you don't sense any hesitation on their part to do this. I marvel at their openness, and thank them for it, as it is certainly a big part in what makes the book an engaging read.

It's very clear that both the authors are writers. When you see a book as capably written as this, it's easy to forget how easily material like this could descend into the maudlin, moralistic, saccharine -- or just plain clunky -- in the hands an unskilled writer.

One final point: in rating this book 3 stars, I don't want to come across as if I'm damning with faint praise. I enjoyed the book, it is solidly well-written, I liked the tone and voice of it, and I would recommend it easily to my friends. Still, I don't feel like I can honestly rate it as a 4 or 5, simply because I don't really feel it ranks, for me, alongside other books I've rated that way. It was a very good book, and it falls solidly into the category of "I liked it".

[Kate · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a topic that fascinates a lot of people--I remember reading about it in Reader's Digest when I was a little kid: identical twins, adopted into two different families, reunite as adults. The authors of this book met (first even heard that they each were a twin!) around age 35. Their parents are as shocked as the twins themselves are, and make it known that they would've happily adopted both, given the option. The twins are (initially at least)more curious about the circumstances of their separation that they are about their biological lineage. They begin doing some research and realize that there are numerous sets of twins divvied up in this way. It turns out that over a period of time spanning their own births in the 1960's, some psychologists were tantalized by the opportunity to investigate the "nature vs. nurture" question by separating twins via adoption, and then following them through in-home observation and testing periodically. They simply requested of the parents (so thrilled to have adopted that they were compliant with the request)that they be permitted to visit/perform the study. The researchers withheld the true purpose of the study--they didn't tell the families that their new babies were each twins. The authors are met with much resistance as they attempt to learn more. Disturbingly, they do find some reason to believe that perhaps the heritability of mental illness was of particular interest to the researchers, and their own mental health, while decidedly not as bad as (what they come to learn about) their bio mother's, has been an issue for them. As disturbing, they find that almost all the records/files pertaining to the twin study have been sealed--many until 2021, and most until 2066, when they and ostensibly most of the twins will be closing in on 100 years of age. (And of course, none of the researchers or adoption agency employees will be alive.) The authors attempted to get the records opened, but were unsuccessful. There are quite possibly still adoptees out there in the US who are unaware that they have a twin somewhere! The authors seem (understandably) torn between righteous indignation at their separation (which, in the context of 2010, seems immoral and ill-advised to say the least)and the understanding that to have been adopted together would mean the loss of the lives that they ended up living, a thought mind-boggling and potentially hurtful to their respective families.
So, the topic of this book is incredible. But while I sympathize with the authors' plight, I couldn't help but feel that they missed the boat a bit with their handling of it. They are really intelligent, but at times very petty and insecure, which I think clouds their processing of the situation. For example, it seemed like they were more fascinated by the similarities and differences in their appearances than in their personalities. And sometimes, it seemed like they misunderstood one another as a result, and it was never clarified. For example, when they first compared weight, the married twin acknowledged that she weighed 15 lbs more, but she has a baby. The unmarried twin was hurt by this "competition." It was so obvious to me as a reader that the married twin just meant that the weight difference should be attributed to having recently carried a child, and that aside from that, they are very comparable in size/shape as you'd expect twins to be. But the offended twin took it to mean, "Sure, you are slimmer, but I have a husband and kid and you don't, so I win! Ha!" There were several petty exchanges like this.
Overall, I felt like I could have read a nice long magazine article about the facts and skipped some of the nonsense. It is another of those cases where part of me applauds the author(s) for being so candid, and another part of me is put off by what is revealed about their nature as a result.

[LAPL Reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

Identical twins have been a source of endless fascination for millennia. Two people who seem to share a mind, with the exact same DNA, can occupy different bodies. Many twins have such an intimate bond that they seem to read other’s thoughts and communicate in a special language. Their bond is much stronger than other siblings, having spent nine months together before birth. As identical twins age, they tend to have similar IQs, heights, and tastes. However, they may develop different skin conditions and allergies as a response to variable environmental factors. In rare cases, identical twins have widely disparate personalities. The first twin studies, conducted by Sir Francis Galton in the 19th century, tried to find an answer to the “nature-nuture” debate (Galton advocated for the “nature” side). After horrific experiments by Nazi Dr. Josef Mengele on twins during the Second World War, ethical concerns were raised about twin studies. Today in America, twins are not separated for the purpose of experimentation, and the subjects of medical studies must be given informed consent by law.

In Identical Strangers, Paula Bernstein and Elyse Schein recount how they found each other in their 30s, after being wrested from each other’s lives before their first birthday. (Not to be confused with the new documentary Three Identical Strangers, which concerns triplets who went through a similar harrowing experience.) Curiosity about their birth mother motivated them to contact the adoption agency, Louise Wise Services, at different times. After Elyse found out that she was a twin, an employee of the agency got in touch with Paula to arrange a meeting. Following an intense introduction, they found that they are both writers who went to film school, have suffered from depression, and have an adopted older brother. The new relationship has the serendipity of a romance, though Elyse comes from a less affluent, more troubled, family in Oklahoma—her adoptive mother died when she was six. She is single while Paula is married with a child. They pledge to find the truth of their early upbringing and get to know each other’s adoptive families.

The Louise Wise Services, named after the wife of Reform Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, was an esteemed Jewish adoption agency in New York. Dr. Viola Bernard, a well-respected psychiatrist, had the weird notion that twins and triplets separated at birth would become psychologically healthier than as multiple offspring kept together. She convinced the administration of Louise Wise, which was run by New York’s Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services, to put her idea into practice. Children were forcibly taken from shared cribs to be with different adoptive families. Neither the children nor the adoptive parents would be told of their sibling(s). A Freudian psychiatrist, Dr. Peter Neubauer, would supervise yearly psychological testing of the twins or triplets in their separate households. Research assistants told the families that their participation was part of a normal child development study instead of a twin study. In 1980, the media coverage of the story of the triplets separated at birth put an end to Dr. Neubauer’s research. The twins study was now considered too controversial. The work on the influence of environmental factors on people with the same genes was never published. Instead, Neubauer’s papers were donated to Yale University, and are not available to researchers until 2066, after most of the study’s unwitting participants will have passed away.

Elyse and Paula were able to find their birth record after doing a thorough vital records search for all twins born on October 9, 1968 in New York City (adoptees have two birth certificates—one with their given name, the other with their adopted name). Through their birth record, they were able to find out the name of their mother, Leda Witt, a bright woman with psychiatric problems who died in her late thirties. The twins were raised by an Irish nanny (as Jean and Marian) for the first six months of their lives. They had an uncomfortable interview with the elderly Dr. Neubauer, who does not express any remorse about the experiment, and they were able to study Dr. Viola Bernard’s papers at Columbia. By the end of this fascinating dual memoir, Elyse and Paula achieve a measure of equanimity about their tragic background.

Reviewed by David B., Librarian, InfoNow

[Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like most books I read, I had heard of this one through NPR and had put it on my hold list at the library. Once again, NPR did not disappoint. While the story itself is interesting (identical twins born to an unwed mother in New York, given up for adoption and then separated at less than a year old possibly due to a nature vs. nurture study on twins) the way the book is written is what makes me like this book so much more. Both women (twins, sisters) take turns telling about each incident and sometimes the same incident about finding and meeting each other and the struggles and joys they experience as they unravel the truth about their separation as babies. Only they themselves could tell this story in a way to draw you in and keep you by their side through the whole journey of discovery. Simply put, it is as if you are allowed to read their private journals along the way...a simple "no holds barred" of the logistics of their new life together and the true emotions they felt along the way. I know much more about twins than I thought I would come across and they are a good example about while nurture plays a role in who we are, nature's pull is very strong.

[Julie Ehlers · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely a lot of interesting stuff here about nature vs. nurture and the Louise Wise Twin Study, but I wasn't really moved by these twins' own story. I think perhaps their writing style/experience isn't suited to memoir. Paula's sections were a little better; Elyse's writing was extremely self-absorbed.

The idea that twins who grow up apart are more alike because they don't need to differentiate themselves from each other was interesting. But, perhaps because I'm an identical twin myself, I didn't relate to this. This book isn't aimed toward other twins, but toward non-twins who don't know anything about it--and possibly toward other separated twins, small group though they may be. I'm glad I read this, but I don't think I'd recommend it to anyone.

[Lori · Rating 4 out of 5]

Elyse Schein and Paula Bernstein each grew up in good families knowing that they were adopted. But at age 35 they discovered that they were twins separated by adoption agency personnel as part of a clandestine nature-versus-nurture study. They were each writers who had studied film in college, but they were leading very different lives at the time they met. They share their stories in alternating voices, peppered with a wealth of twin lore they discovered in their quest to understand each other. Their dual narratives reveal their pasts, their search for their birth mother, and the impact of their new reality with uncommon emotional honesty.

[Kim · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked the actual story parts of the book. A lot of it was like reading a textbook unfortunately.

[Claire · Rating 3 out of 5]

We went to see the documentary Three Identical Strangers (moviepass FTW at least as far as air conditioning in a heat wave goes) and it was
1) gripping and
2) successfully manipulative and
3) left us with more questions than answers.

So JRB and I went home and started digging and discovered that it also
4) not only ignored but in some cases actually erased any women involved, and also appeared to
5) present some major inaccuracies and
6) makes me extremely frustrated now that I know a little more!

Like, here's a lot of time spent on the dads involved and their parenting styles, but the mothers' parenting styles weren't mentioned although they would presumably have done most of the childcare? Neither were the sisters (in an ama on reddit, Wardle said there just wasn't time for them - https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comme...). That seems especially relevant because Wardle suggests that the study was about parenting styles and reminds us that each boy had an older sister adopted three years prior at Louise Wise... which implies that the sisters were also studied in order to determine environment and parenting styles.

So anyway, I requested this book, which was published ten years ago by two of the twins who were also separated at birth as part of the same Louise Wise study. (They appeared very briefly in a clip from a talk show in the documentary.) Paula and Elyse discovered each other's existence in their early 30s in the early 2000s, and started digging to find out whatever they could about what had happened and why.

TBH, I found their voices to be a little annoying to read, and their casual fatphobia to be exhausting. But it was still a fascinating read and counterpoint to the movie.

And it turns out:

- Although the movie focuses solely on Dr Neubauer, the study was conceptualized and led by a woman, Viola Barnard. Her files are also under lock and key, but only until 2021. I don't recall her actually being mentioned in the film at all.

- Elyse and Paula actually got to interview Neubauer before he died. Although one of the grad students who worked on the study said that he didn't think it had to do with mental illness and that it was instead only about parenting styles, what Neubauer said in their interview strongly suggests that it *was* about the inheritability of mental illness.

- Although Lawrence Wright was the first to mention the study in the New Yorker in 1995, the details of the story were broken by Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist Stephanie Saul in 1997. (Not dissing Wright and his research here... but maybe ignoring Stephanie Saul wasn't necessary?)

- Filmmaker Lori Shinseki started (and finished) a documentary called The Twinning Reaction about this exact same subject before Tim Wardle did, though hers wasn't picked up for huge mainstream distribution. (https://slate.com/culture/2018/06/the...)

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Identical Strangers reads like a real-life detective story. It begins with a lady raised by adopted parents, Elyse Schein, who decides in her mid-thirties that she would like to learn who her biological mother is. Very early in the process of doing so she inadvertently discovers she has an identical twin sister, Paula Bernstein. The two ladies then pool their efforts and attempt to find out who their mother was and why they were separated during the adoption process in the first place. It turns out a number of twins up for adoption were separated as part of a nature/nurture study, the records of which are still sealed (or at least still were at the time this book was written).

There are three threads running through this book. One is their struggle to get around all of the roadblocks and dead ends that stand in the way of them finding out who their biological mother is. The second is the process of the two learning about each other and the ways in which they differ and the ways in which they are similar. Events are depicted from the point of view of one twin and then again from the point of the view of the other, a technique that more often demonstrates the differences between them than the similarities. The third is the discoveries about twins from the realms of science and psychology that are scattered throughout the book. This is a memoir so there isn't much in the way of proper citations but what is included was interesting enough to remind me that I really need to read a proper treatment on the subject someday, having seen twin studies cited in books running the gamut from psychopathy to spirituality.

One of the more captivating memoirs I have read in 2018.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

A compelling story of two identical twins separated at birth and never told about it by the adoption agency, which has since gone out of business. When the twins finally meet, it's interesting how they sound each other out, and each has expectations of the other that are not met. To me, the most interesting part was the agency's allowing a relatively secret personality survey to be ongoingly conducted. It turns out that one thing the psychologists were testing was the heritability of schizophrenia, among other mental disorders, and both twins were justifiably furious that this had been done without their consent, and not only that, but trying to find the results of the unpublished study were blocked and hindered at every turn. Shades of Joseph Mengele: very presumptuous and arrogant.

The twins finally find a photo of their late mother and contact a girlfriend of hers from high school, who tells them what she was like. After several rude rejections by their blood uncle, he finally allows them to meet him and show him where their mother was born and the mental hospital in which she spent much of her life, and then appears to want nothing further to do with them. At the end of the book, they show the high school graduation photo of their mother. She sort of looks like Annette Funicello just after her Mouseketeer days. So it's somewhat of a happy ending, although the twins squabble a lot with each other because each thinks the other should be more like herself.

[Tena · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book very interesting.I don't have any close friends who are twins or even good friends who are adopted so the subject matter was one that was fascinating. The book is written by two identical twin sisters who were separated within the first few months of life and adopted into separate families. As they both begin to separately search for their birth records around the age of 35 they discover they had a twin. In the course of doing research on their past they also discover they were part of an unusual research project that seprarated infant twins in an effort to cause them to thrive more.(this is all on the book jacket!)I liked the book for many reasons, I had never considered the psychological aspects of what it would be like to be an identical twin and it was fascinating to read how it felt to for the sisters to find another one of themselves in the universe. It was wonderful but sometimes uncomfortable to know that they were not as unique that they imagined. The only thing I didn't like was the way the book rambled a bit, and this could be because it was written in a style that the conversation shifted back and forth between each twin's perspective of the events. But it was minor. I would recommend the book.

[Selene Colburn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having read several books about twins separated at birth over the past year, it was amazing to come across one from the perspective of the twins themselves, rather than the scientists who studied them. Even more so because the authors were part of the infamous study conducted by Peter Neubauer (remember him from Janet Malcolm's book about the Freud Archives?) via the Louise Wise Adoption Agency (twins were separated, adoptive families weren't informed their children were twins, and their development was closely monitored in weekly sessions the parents never knew were comparing their child to a nearby twin: yech), the results of which have never been published. Because of their experience, the authors had access to preeminent twin researchers, including Neubauer. Their account of meeting him is chilling, as is their theory that his study was examining the hereditability of mental illness (if true, this meant adoptive parents were not informed about diseases such as schizophrenia in their children's biological family history). Minor quibbles with the prose style (present tense/back and forth), which is mostly effective, but occasionally seems to try to cram all their research into story mode. A fascinating and touching book.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am so glad to be done with this since I have not been able to get anything else done since I started it. Fascinating! Identical Strangers is about twin girls separated at birth and given up for adoption. They are united at age 35 and begin the quest to discover who they are and why they were separately adopted in the first place. This book share lots of information on twins, the strong influence of genetics, adoption and mental illness. Told as a narrative, each twin shares personal thoughts and impressions allowing the reader to get a sneak peak into their lives now and what they grew up missing, thinking and experiencing. The book includes pictures of them as children and adults. Originally, I had heard about this on Sunday Morning the news show and so am delighted to know "the rest of the story." Anyone with twins, or who has adopted a child would find this intriguing. The rest of us can enjoy it as voyeurs into a world that is hard to imagine...

[Laurie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the story of two women adopted as infants, who, at age 35, discover they are identical twins. The book alternates between the twins' voices and is a really captivating read. It is interesting to read about the women's journey and shocking to find out how and why they were separated. I also really appreciated their honesty throughout the book.

At times I found the writing a little uneven, but the voices are so strong and the story so compelling that it was hard for me to put down this book.

[Joy H. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Added 10/12/11.
I've recently been listening to the audio version of this book. Don't know if I will finish listening to all the discs because I have other more interesting CD's on the docket. After a while this book seems to repeat the same ideas over and over. So it lost my interest because it's slow in getting to the point. So far, the twins talk about looking into the reason they were separated (without their adopted parents' knowledge) and if the separation was the humane thing to do.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow,what an amazing story. I saw these two women interviewed as a part of the documentary "Three Identical Strangers", but the full story of these two women was equally fascinating. The people they get to meet during their search for their history - terrific.

[Paige · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 1/2 stars. Generally I liked this book. The title pretty much sums up what it's about: identical twins were separated at birth (or actually 5-6 months after birth) and found out about each other for the first time at 35. Although there is some discussion of nature vs nuture, what is and isn't genetically determined, and the impacts of environment and early trauma, it is really more about the two authors--how they found out about each other, how they reacted to the information, how their relationship developed, their own reflections surrounding their past and present situation. I guess I wish it had been more nonfiction-like. Their story is interesting but I would have been more interested to learn about separated twins and nature vs nurture in general. But it's a pretty minor gripe--the writing is engaging and fun to read and they do pose really intriguing questions about genetics and personality.

Overall, if this sounds like an interesting story or if you're interested in identical twins or twin studies, I would definitely recommend it.

There were some things I found problematic, which I am now going to talk about.

Fat phobia. In addition to hearing the twins compare their weight repeatedly (with "lighter" being deemed automatically "better") there are quite a few other instances as well. Here's one sentence that just made me cringe: "It will be easier for me to tell my family about my birth mother's mental illness, which is somehow less shameful than obesity to me" (p.179). Lady...neither obesity nor mental illness is something to be ashamed of... It rankles more because the mental illness is what ended up killing their mother (or at least contributing to her death). So it's worse to be considered unattractive than it is to basically be so chemically unbalanced and unhappy that you die as a result. What a world, eh?

Also they are continually trying to cast the doctor(s) who separated them and studied them as just super bad and ridiculously just BAD. There's one part where they quote someone saying that Dr. Bernard wasn't evil but came close. At another point they compare the twin study they were sort-of-but-not-really a part of with Josef Mengele's twin "studies." And they don't really have anything to go on besides "we're TWINS!! TWIIIINSSSS." Like that is magic or something. They never really convinced me that Dr. Bernard was doing something inherently wrong or unethical. Basically her premise was that raising twins places an extra burden on parents over raising a singleton, and being raised with a twin places certain unique burdens on the child. Disclosure: Peter is a (fraternal) twin. After talking to his mother about her experience raising them, it seems that, wow, guess what, it IS harder to raise two babies than one! Gosh darn. And talking to Peter about it, it seems that IS harder to differentiate an individual personality when you are constantly considered as part of a unit and compared to your twin. There are twins in this very book that confirm that. (Both Peter and the twins in the book also say that there are unique benefits from being a twin as well, just to be clear.) So it seems that Dr. Bernard's premise is not all that far-fetched, and if she is actually working from that assumption then what she did is completely different than what Mengele did. I mean SRSLY LADIES?? I get it that you are upset about being separated (or are you? you can't really seem to decide) but those comparisons and the whole "Dr. Bernard, Dr. Neubauer, so mean and wrong and dumb and wrong and MEAN!!!" just didn't resonate with me. It seemed over the top. You could definitely make the argument that it was harmful or unethical, or that at least would have been better if you had been kept together. But the thing is, they didn't present any evidence at all that it was harmful in general or had harmed them. In fact they both express contentment and relief (or something like it) at having been raised apart. So... um... yeah. All that "OMG EVIL DOCTORS SEPARATING TWINS" seemed somewhat out of place.

Also: "Dr. Bernard asserted [...] that there was no definitive scientific information about the heritability of schizophrenia. But articles in her file prove otherwise. One 1953 study among her papers found a significantly higher incidence of schizophrenia among the relatives of schizophrenics than in the general population" (p. 197). Er...One study? How big was the sample size? How were they selected? What other factors could contribute to the onset of schizophrenia? If the researchers were operating under the assumption that environment trumps genetics, noting that schizophrenia run in families doesn't necessarily discount environmental considerations. Maybe these families all share similar child rearing techniques that trigger schizophrenia. "One 1953 study" is hardly definitive scientific information--it could have been a study of three families that relied on self-reporting--the book doesn't say. So it hardly "proves" that she was perjuring herself or lying to further her evil baby-snatching-and-separating cause.

Anyway... I really did (mostly) enjoy it! ;)

[Patricia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Intriguing, the honest feelings of these identical and very different women. I thank them for courage to continue in the relationship and in their search for answers about their roots.

[Shifra · Rating 5 out of 5]

I couldn't put this book down. It was a wonderful combination of a really interesting story, reflections on identity and nature/ nurture from a personal perspective, background info about identical twins, and more. It was well written and accessible, and facinating. I appreciated their alternating voices and perspectives, and their introspection and candor. It fed both my brain and heart.

I have a number of identical twins in my life (I gave the book to one of them for her birthday), a number of people who were adopted, and several friends who have recently adopted children, so this connects with a lot of the ways they and I have thought about these issues before. Also, when I was a teenager in NY, I had a friend/ acquaintance who knew she was adopted, and discovered that she had an identical twin, since she met someone (who we knew in common) who knew her sister. They met, although I don't remember talking with her about the whole process-- adolescence can't alway talk about the elephant in the room. I remember meeting the friend at my friend's wedding, and being shocked at how alike they appeared, and how normal and weird it all seemed.

That's not really about the book, but the ways that books capture strange segments of real life that can be interesting to some for the ways they hit close to home, and for the way they expose us to interesting things we would otherwise never know about or consider.

[Susan Bazzett-Griffith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Identical Strangers, written in alternating perspectives of identical twins raised unaware of each other's existence and apart until close to the age of thirty, was an intense and compelling read. Thankfully, both authors happen to be fantastic writers, one of whom has been a journalist for magazines such as Variety, for years. The solid writing makes their bizarre story read more like a novel than a nonfiction book about the Louise Wise adoption agency and its psychological "study" on separating identical multiples.

This book was difficult to put down, mostly for the backstory and the questions it brought up and answered, one by one. -- why were the twins separated? What was the adoption agency trying to do or prove by separating identical twins in their placements? Why are those who were still alive to defend the decisions so intent on their righteousness? How were mental patients treated in the 1950s and 1960s? How does schizophrenia and bipolar disorder affect a family? How does it feel to be raised knowing you were adopted? How does it feel to find out you have a sibling you never knew about, let alone an identical twin? All of these issues together create a stunning narrative that I really enjoyed all the way through. Four stars- recommended for people who like psychological history and good memoirs.

[Barb Wild · Rating 5 out of 5]

Identical Strangers is right up my ally. I am an identical twin that was also adopted but I was adopted with my twin. Alot of how you were raised about adoption makes a huge difference. My parents always told us about our adoption and how we were chosen. I always loved being an identical twin. The two sisters that are reunited in Identical Strangers find it exciting to meet each other and share characteristics. Elyse seems more interested at times and wants to have that twin bond. They seem to like alot of the same things but what caught me was the thought process for these ladies. I know just what they mean when they finish each other sentences. My twin Nancy and I do that as well as act on things without any communication between us to do things. It is really odd. No one can understand what we are doing or not talking about but we do. I married the brother of an identical twin and Tom knew how the communication went between his own brothers and caught on quickly! I also have fraternal twins myself and even though they are 1000 miles apart its amazing how they post the same thing on facebook at the same time. Now is this nature? I personally loved the book and would love to get to read more stories about twins of all kinds. Would surely recommend this. I believe there are readers out there that are secretly WANTING to be a twin so they won't read about them.

[Kristy Isla · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, what an amazing book. You may have just seen these authors on the Today Show a couple of Fridays ago, and their book is really worth reading.

The books starts out with both women finding out they have a twin from the adoption agency they were adopted from. It continues with each woman's perspective on how they felt when they found out, what changed in their lives and such. One of the authors was very upset to learn she had a sister and a twin, she was very content in her life and hoped that her twin did want her to be more than she could be to her.

The book also talks about the scientific study they were a part of (the reason for their separation), yet does not answer many questions as the notes to the research (never published) are currently at the Yale Library closed to researchers till 2066.

Any mother would like this book, also any adoptees or those looking to adopt. However, anyone can enjoy the book as it is a great story.