In 1990, we knew this much was true: You couldn't touch MC Hammer, five powers combined to make Captain Planet, Arnold Schwarzenegger didn't have a toomah, nothing compared to Sinead O'Connor, and we had no idea who killed Laura Palmer. Also, Operation Desert Shield kicked the Gulf War into high gear. But if we needed to distract ourselves from war, we could imagine making pottery with Patrick Swayze.

In 1990, Dominick Birdsey, the narrator of Wally Lamb's I Know This Much is True, knows this much is true: He has to take care of his schizophrenic brother, Thomas; he has to talk about his past with his therapist; and he has to read his grandfather's memoirs to learn dark secrets about his family history (and maybe figure out who is real father is).

Despite being set in 1990 (and 1900 and 1950), I Know This Much is True was published in 1998. It is Lamb's second book, following his debut novel, She's Come Undone. Lamb first blew up in 1997 when Oprah selected She's Come Undone for her book club. She did it again the next year with the publication of I Know This Much is True. He was only the second author to be chosen by O herself twice (watch out, Toni Morrison).

Oprah was probably impressed by the epic scale of the novel. Dominick lives in an era of George Bush (the first one), Rodney King, and L.A. Law. He discusses his childhood with his therapist, and he grew up in the 1950s, a time of men working, women staying at home, and astronauts landing on the moon. Finally, Dominick discovers his grandfather's life story. An Italian immigrant, Domenico moved to the U.S. and worked hard to achieve the American dream—a house he builds himself, a picket fence he paints himself, a wife he buys himself. The usual.

While this novel isn't a sequel to She's Come Undone, it takes place in the same region of the United States, features many of Lamb's recurring themes—mental health, therapy, dozens of pop culture references—and might even feature a cameo by a familiar character or two. Although Oprah's Book Club may be no more, we know this much is true: I Know This Much is True is an epic journey, so pick up a copy of this book (lift with your knees) and go along for the ride.

Many things from the 1990s, when I Know This Much is True is set, have been upgraded to something bigger and better. Tape-based answering machines have become digital voicemails that transcribe messages into text. TVs don't just get four channels via rabbit-ear antennas; they get about four million channels piped in from cable or satellite. But a couple of things that feature prominently in I Know This Much is True still exist today, maybe even on a larger scale than in the 90s: McDonald's and mental illness. (Could they be related?)

McDonald's is its own issue for another day. The (artery-clogged) heart of I Know This Much is True is in its depiction of mental illness, specifically schizophrenia, and how it affects both the mentally ill person himself, and his family.

Reading fiction is a great way to empathize with people whose experiences you are unfamiliar with, and one of the best ways to understand mental illness is to empathize with everyone involved—the patient, the family, the doctors. Plus, it's a heck of a lot more fun to read a novel than psychological journals. Unless those are your thing, in which case, you do you. Either way, mental illness is alive and well, so though this book is set in the 90s, it's highly relevant all these years later.

Schizophrenia.com recommends I Know This Much is True as a must-read novel and Lamb includes a link to the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) in the back of the first-edition paperback. So learn a bit about this serious illness, but enjoy the story along the way, by reading I Know This Much is True. It's a lot more interesting than reading a textbook.