SOURCE: A review of The Same Embrace, in Kirkus Reviews, July 15, 1998, pp. 990-91.

[In the following review, the critic credits Lowenthal with a "moving" portrayal of a family in conflict.]

[The Same Embrace is a] closely observed study of the corrosive effect of a family's long-held secrets and, more particularly, of the struggle of siblings to defuse their anger and find some common ground.

Jacob, the 25-year-old protagonist, is bright, Jewish, and gay. His parents are at best unhappy with their son's homosexuality; his twin brother Jonathan, studying at an Orthodox Yeshiva in Israel, is angry and withdrawn. Jacob, urged on by his parents, leaves his job in Boston and goes to Israel to try to talk his brother into returning home. Instead, though he has had little interest in his faith, Jacob finds himself increasingly impressed by the innocent high spirits of the students, and by some...