Abstract
Identical Twins: Adult Reflections on the Twinship Experience provides fascinating insight into the relational worlds of monozygotic twins. An identical twin herself, author Joleen Loucks Greenwood draws on her personal experiences of twinship to shape her research, which is impressive in scope, comprising interviews with 113 identical twins. There is no doubt that a qualitative study of this scale adds greatly to what has hitherto been an under-researched field dominated by scientific studies focused on behavioral genetics. Through her qualitative approach, Greenwood is able to contribute insight into identical twinship, identifying a unique “closeness” characterizing the twin relationship of many of her participants and exploring, through the perspectives of twins, how this relationship is perceived to affect other aspects of their lives.
The book begins with an overview of the limited field of twinship studies and situates the research within theories of attachment. The theoretical underpinnings of the research findings are given a light touch in the book and, while it would have been interesting to unpack some of the concepts and ideas that the data raise through a more theoretical lens, this approach allows the words of the participants to take center stage. The rest of the book is organized into thematic chapters that cover “Best Friends, and Other Friendships,” “Identical Twins and Romantic Relationships,” and “Identical Twins and Sibling Relationships,” as well as the benefits and challenges associated with being an identical twin.
The first of these data chapters, through its focus on twins as “best friends,” pinpoints something of what is unique about identical twinship and explains the inimitable closeness of this relationship, which serves as vital context for the chapters that follow. A great strength of the book is that it situates twin relationships within wider webs of relationships, including with friends and later with other siblings and within romantic relationships. Though the nature of this study means that this can only be explored here through the perspective of twins themselves, it offers a relational perspective on being a twin that avoids conceptualizing the twin relationship in a vacuum and paves the way for further research that may gain the perspectives of other actors such as the partners, siblings, and even parents of twins. This relational lens means that we are able to understand twins’ perceptions of feelings of jealousy experienced by friends, other siblings, and partners and offers a fascinating insight into the challenges of navigating relationships with others while continuing to nurture the unique closeness of the twin bond that many participants in the study had experienced. While the introductory mention of attachment theory is a useful tool in making sense of the closeness experienced by twins, the analysis would have been greatly enhanced if this relational perspective had been unpacked in more depth, perhaps drawing on more conceptual work within family sociology on intimacy and relationality.
Another key strength of the book is its placement of twin relationships within the life course. While this is not flagged as a key approach in the book’s introduction, it is clear both from the age range of the sample and the nature of the data that this research has considered the experience of twinship through various life events including school friendships, first romantic relationships, marriage, parenthood, parental divorce, and marital breakdown. In so doing the book constitutes a key contribution to the sociology of family and relationships, where most studies of lateral ties with siblings and friends have concentrated on childhood and youth. In addition to mapping how twinship affects and is affected by life events, the research also addresses the future, with some participants expressing concerns, for example about what life would be like if their twin died. Greenwood argues that despite these temporal challenges and fears, twin relationships are often very resilient to change, an important finding that will be of interest to scholars beyond family studies, for example those working on issues of aging and well-being across the life course.
There is a lot of data presented in the book, and this is enhanced by the way the author weaves her own experiences as a twin into the writing. A good balance is achieved here, and Greenwood often uses reflections of her own relationship with her twin sister to introduce some of the main themes of the book. This is sometimes powerful and moving, for example when Greenwood discusses caring for her dying mother with her sister, but it is always a useful and insightful way into the data that never overrides the voices and perspectives of the research participants. Indeed, divergence and nuance in the data are explored throughout the volume, though perhaps more could have been done to draw out differences in gender, ethnicity, and socio-economic circumstances.
Overall, this is a very interesting book. The study represents an important contribution to our understanding of twinship and the ways it is intertwined with other relationships. The book will be of interest to family sociologists, psychologists, and practitioners working with families, such as social workers and youth workers. There are possibly some missed opportunities to unpack some of the concepts and ideas raised in the book, for example the concept of closeness, the role of the life course, and the ways twins are embedded within other relational forms. However, this does not take away from a robust and impressively large-scale insight into twinship of the sort not previously seen before in sociology.