NPR

'Vanishing Twins' Follows One Woman's Search For Individuality Amid Coupledom

When Leah Dieterich settles down with her other half, she begins to wonder: "Once you find someone to finish your sentences, do you stop finishing them for yourself?"
Source: NPR

When Leah Dieterich accidentally stumbles upon the phenomenon of vanishing twin syndrome, she believes she might have hit on an explanation she's been looking for her entire life.

"I've always preferred being in the company of one other person to being in a group," she writes in her memoir, Vanishing Twins. "I'd thought this meant I was antisocial, but maybe it's a desire to return to the relationship I had with another person in the womb."

She calls the closeness she, "a perpetual state of becoming more alike." She finds it in her adolescence with her best friend, Giselle, who abruptly splits off from their coupledom when she discovers boys, causing Dieterich to lose the "comforting symmetry that had always made our friendship seem predestined."

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from NPR

NPR1 min readAmerican Government
Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago Classified Documents Case Is Delayed Indefinitely By Judge
The classified documents trial had been scheduled to begin May 20. But months of delays had slowed the case as prosecutors pushed for the trial to begin before the November presidential election
NPR4 min read
Last-minute Candidate José Raúl Mulino Wins Panama's Presidential Election
José Raúl Mulino was set to become the new leader of the Central American nation as authorities unofficially called the race Sunday night after his three nearest rivals conceded.
NPR3 min read
'Long Island' Renders Bare The Universality Of Longing
In a heartrending follow-up to his beloved 2009 novel, Brooklyn, Colm Tóibín handles uncertainties and moral conundrums with exquisite delicacy, zigzagging through time to a devastating climax.

Related Books & Audiobooks