SOURCE: A review of The Same Embrace, in Publishers Weekly, July 6, 1998, p. 49.

[In the following review, the critic praises Lowenthal's command of dialogue and his descriptive powers.]

The shadow of the Holocaust looms over this affecting first novel, a tale of identical twins who must come to terms with their peculiar bond and its limits. Jacob Rosenbaum, openly gay and mourning the recent death of his best friend, travels from Boston to Israel in order to persuade his brother Jonathan, newly and fervently orthodox, to leave the yeshiva where he is studying and return to the U.S. More than religious and sexual differences keep the brothers apart. Both need to overcome the legacy of their stern rabbi grandfather, who pitted them against each other in wrestling contests Michael Lowenthal

when they were boys (matches that Jacob always won). Jacob's struggle to reconcile with his brother is as...