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This is a biographical study of the identical twins, Tony Milasi and Roger Brooks, who had been separated at birth and grew up miles
apart. The author met them shortly after their reunion and soon undertook a two-year research into their individual backgrounds, the events leading to their finding each other, and their decision to live and work together. In his introduction to the book, Amram Scheinfeld calls it '… the most thorough and perceptive account ever written about the lives of long-separated and then reunited twins … a human document which will have special meaning for all who are personally or professionally concerned with twins and their problems.'
In my opinion this book will be of more interest to the layman than to the professional. Lindeman's approach is journalistic. He has woven the events in the lives of Roger and Tony into a vivid story, depicting the attitudes and feeling of the brothers as well as of those close to them, with great empathy. Nevertheless, there is very little in the account which enables us to increase our psychoanalytic understanding of the twin relationship.
Throughout the book attitudes toward twins characteristic of our culture appear repeatedly: the ideas, for example, that twins are 'destined by fate to be together', that separation constitutes a serious deprivation, and that twins experience extrasensory perception. Whether or not Lindeman actually believes in this 'twin mystique' is not always clear, but it certainly pervades his writing. Under his pen the twinship takes on the characteristics of a magnetic force inevitably drawing the brothers toward a reunion and then holding them captive. When he reports that both boys, as children, had daydreamed about having a twin, he implies that even before they actually knew a twin existed, they had somehow 'sensed' it. Of course, we cannot criticize Lindeman for not knowing that many nontwins enjoy a fantasy of having a twin. Nor should we expect him to know that very