Non­fic­tion

One and the Same: My Life as an Iden­ti­cal Twin and What I’ve Learned About Every­one’s Strug­gle to Be Singular

  • From the Publisher
November 10, 2015
Jour­nal­ist Abi­gail Pogre­bin is many things — wife, moth­er, New York­er — but the one that has defined her most pro­found­ly is iden­ti­cal twin.” As chil­dren, she and her sis­ter, Robin, were insep­a­ra­ble. But when Robin began to pull away as an adult, Abi­gail was left to won­der not only why, but also about the very nature of twin­ship. What does it mean to have a mir­ror image? How can you be unique when some­body shares your DNA

In One and the Same, Abi­gail sets off on a quest to under­stand how genet­ics shape us, criss­cross­ing the coun­try to explore the var­ied rela­tion­ships between twins, which range from pas­sion­ate to bit­ter­ly resent­ful. She speaks to the experts and tries to answer the ques­tion par­ents ask most — is it bet­ter to encour­age their sep­a­rate­ness or close­ness? And she paints a riv­et­ing por­trait of twin life, yield­ing fas­ci­nat­ing truths about how we become who we are.


Inter­view


Watch Abi­gail in con­ver­sa­tion with JBC Book Clubs direc­tor, Miri Pomer­antz Dauber, talk­ing about One and the Same as part of the 2015 Glob­al Day of Jew­ish Learn­ing’s 24×24

Discussion Questions