Twins’ tale of discovery moving, engaging

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This article was published 28/10/2007 (6750 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited

By Elyse Schein and Paula Bernstein

Random House, 263 pages, $34

Reviewed by Sharon Chisvin

ELYSE Schein and Paula Bernstein are identical twins. They look the same, act the same and share the same facial expressions, hand gestures, allergies, interests and of course DNA. Both studied film in college, and both have always been drawn to France.

But Elyse and Paula did not know about each other’s existence until they were 35 years old. It was only when Elyse contacted an adoption agency to inquire about her birth mother that she found out she had a twin.

Now, just a couple of years after being reunited, the New York-based sisters have written a moving and engaging memoir about their separation, adoption and reunion, and the astonishing experimental study in which they unknowingly participated.

Elyse and Paula were given up for adoption at birth to the Louise Wise Services, an American adoption agency that primarily sought to match Jewish babies with Jewish adoptive families.

At the time, the agency staff inexplicably favoured an unproven and generally unpopular theory that suggested that it benefited twins to be separated so that they each could develop a better sense of self.

Once separated, these twins became natural fodder for a study on nurture versus nature. But, in the case of Elyse and Paula, there was a more sinister aspect to this study. It was also meant to shed light on the hereditary aspect of schizophrenia.

As Elyse and Paula discover soon after their reunion, their birth mother was diagnosed as schizophrenic as a young woman, as were the biological mothers of several other sets of twins and triplets naively participating in the study.

As appalling as this discovery was, it also brought some relief to Elyse and Paula, seemingly explaining the depression they both suffered during their college years.

When they tracked down other sibling sets from the study, they discovered that mental illness was prevalent among many of them.

These are just a few of the many startling facts the sisters uncovered as they set out together to solve the mystery of their separation. It is an incredible journey, retold by Elyse and Paula in alternating voices with heartfelt tenderness and heartbreaking honesty.

Paula, for example, is forthright in admitting that when she first learned of Elyse’s existence, she was hesitant to invite her into her life, fearful she would upset her status quo.

“Elyse challenges my notion of family,” she writes. “Because we inhabited the same womb for nine months and possess identical DNA, she is literally a part of me and I of her. She is my twin, but not yet my sister. We have no shared memories, just a shared set of tendencies. But, even though we just met, I can’t deny that she is family.” Paula’s trepidation is understandable. Although the girls were placed in similar adoptive homes in the New York area, Paula clearly had a much easier and more stable life than her twin.

She grew up with loving parents, attended a good school and, when she first meets Elyse, was in the throes of an exciting writing career, a solid marriage and new motherhood.

Elyse, to the contrary, faced numerous challenges early in life, including the childhood loss of her adoptive mother to cancer and her older brother to mental illness.

At the time of her initial meeting with Paula, she was single, between jobs and questioning her self-imposed exile to Paris. She was obviously more emotionally needy than her sister.

Yet Elyse quickly made it clear that she wanted nothing more from her twin than an acknowledgment of their shared beginning. Naturally she was overjoyed when she received this, and thrilled when this initial recognition evolved into true sisterhood and love.

By the end of this fascinating memoir Elyse and Paula realize that it no longer really matters why they were separated or precisely what they have found out. What matters is that for the rest of their lives now, they will have each other.

Sharon Chisvin is a Winnipeg writer.