Identical Strangers: A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited
By Elyse Schein and Paula Bernstein
Random House, 270 pp., illustrated, $25.95

All of us, I think, are more than intrigued by the phenomenon of twins, and the thought that, as unique as we may believe ourselves to be, there might be someone out there identical to us. We remain fascinated by the prospect of possibly seeing ourselves in the face, mannerisms, temperament, and even experiences of another.

Some of us sense that we have a twin somewhere. Perhaps this accounts for the fact that when we examine our own reflections, an act blithely labeled narcissistic, we are, in some recesses of our soul, hunting for someone once attached to us. In this regard, we are struck with the estimate that as many as 15 percent of all conceptions commence as twins, with the less viable often eventually dying and being subsumed by the other.

Science has long been interested in twins because of the possibility of studying the differential effects of nature and nurture in people possessing identical genomic structures. And the results of these studies have been more than provocative. That twins separated at birth and raised by different parents, none of whom, perhaps, are the birth parents, reveal identical behavioral and psychological evolutions, not to mention significant life choices, is utterly startling, particularly to those who bet on the determining power of parents and socialization.

Books on twins and the psychological phenomenon known as twinning have been around for a while, along with a growing collection of memoirs. But with the publication of "Identical Strangers," Elyse Schein and Paula Bernstein may have established an important standard for these works.

Writing in the form of alternating diary entries, Schein and Bernstein share their excitement, their anxiety, and the ambivalence that emerges as they meet and get to know each other. In several significant realms, their lives have taken distinctly different paths. Bernstein's family has been solid, stable, constant. Schein's, on the other hand, has experienced the premature death of her adoptive mother, and the tragedy of a brother's mental illness. Both women have struggled with depression, the onset, stunningly, coming in the same year; both have found their way into the world of cinema: Schein making films, Bernstein writing about them. Not insignificantly, Bernstein is married with a child and will give birth to a second as the story evolves; Schein hunts for the right man, who, ironically, appears to have arrived on the scene soon after the twins have united.

But if they are artists, self-reflective, open to human experience, the sisters are also thoughtful journalists, curious, courageous. Their inevitable hunt for birth parents leads them into a rather ugly chapter of adoption history. Because the laws pertaining to adoption and the protection of participants were not as progressive and comprehensive as they presently are, it was possible for adoption agencies, in this instance the most prominent Jewish agency in New York City, to never advise adoptive parents of the existence of a twin sibling. Neither the Scheins nor Bernsteins had any knowledge that they could have adopted both girls.

But how could this be when the girls were together in foster care for almost half a year? Everyone connected with their case knew they were twins. Could it have been mere oversight? Was it that psychologists were more interested in being able to observe the nature-nurture issue playing itself out? Or were professionals curious about the inheritability of mental illness?

In fact, the girls were studied by psychologists. Apparently, it was common practice to periodically examine children adopted from this particular agency. Still, suspecting that inheritability of mental illness may have been a factor in these allegedly cursory examinations, the authors pursue the trail of their origins. Eventually, through a brief encounter with the brother of their birth mother, a remarkably emotionless man, they learn that their birth mother, now dead, had indeed suffered with depression. Sadly, however, the women find no record identifying their birth father.

As for the seemingly nefarious hypothesis of clandestine psychological investigations, there were indeed secret research meetings aimed at exploring the role of parenting in the psychological and temperamental development of children. Data were collected, and reports generated, but the twins will be old when these documents, housed at Yale University, will be open to the public. Quite possibly, it will be their own children who finally learn the history.

"Identical Strangers" is in many ways a remarkable book. Let the reader not be put off, as I was in the beginning, by a somewhat irritating format of first this one's account and then the other's. For if one looks closely, the integration of the two narratives appears to symbolize the very evolution of the women's connection and convergence. The literary form actually reinforces the powerful tale of twinning, with all its exhilarating as well as exasperating tendrils. The reader is left to marvel at the reworking of individual identities required by one discovery and then another. All of life, apparently, must be recontextualized, recalculated. But in the end, if one is not envious of this extraordinary experience, and left wondering might there be another me out there, one surely is admiring of people who can not only live through this form of rebirth, but recount it with such grace and honesty, once again confirming that we don't have relationships, we are relationships.

Thomas J. Cottle, professor of education at Boston University, is the author most recently of "When the Music Stopped: Discovering My Mother."