ARE TWINS DIFFERENT FROM “NORMAL PEOPLE”?

ARE TWINS DIFFERENT FROM “NORMAL PEOPLE”? The weekend Financial Times has a review by Rosie Blau of four fiction books about twins. One of the books is TWIN STUDY: STORIES by Stacey Richter. I am an identical twin and have posted several times about being a twin, so I read the review with interest. I was brought up short by Blau’s quotations from Richter’s book. Blau notes that “twin children seem natural and adorable”, but then juxtaposes a quote from Richter (evidently from Richter’s protagonist, who is a twin): “adult twins seem aberrant, even to me….a trick of genetics, a dirty trick.” Later in the review Blau quotes the twin protagonist as saying that people study twins because “they want to know what we mean for normal people.” For myself, I have always believed that twins are “natural and adorable”—whether they are children or adults. I know there is an opposite view, but I am always surprised when I encounter it.