Disregard that Oprah Winfrey has chosen this stirring 900-page epic for her book club, a somewhat weird exercise in pushing her reading tastes on the American public. In this instance, she's on the mark. Wally Lamb has written one of the best novels in recent memory.

In outline, "I Know This Much Is True" will seem outrageously plotted, with its constant barrage of surprises, misery, redemption, and gut-wrenching depictions of people in crisis. Despite its length, the novel carries all the impetus of an oncoming freight train with the reader tied down to the tracks, unable to wrest his binds loose for escape.

Narrated by Domenick Birdsey, whose schizophrenic brother chops off his hand in the opening pages, the narrative follows the sane brother's often ineffective attempts to cope with his brother's enduring and increasingly perplexing illness. Domenick, at age 40, is trying to get over his divorce from Dessa, who remains his one true love. His current girlfriend is 15 years his junior, beautiful, with a life that's a total mess.

Fighting the psychiatrists and social workers who care for his brother, now deemed so ill and such a threat to others that he must remain confined in a prison-like hospital for mental defectives, Domenick faces the seeming destruction of every aspect of his own shattered existence. When a manuscript written by his Sicilian grandfather seems to offer an explanation for family problems, Domenick hands the manuscript to a wacky translator, who disappears along with his grandfather's book.

In a book packed with drama and constant turmoil, Domenick tries to find some way to deal with all his problems. Lamb includes many sessions with the ill brother's doctors, along with others who seek to help Domenick in his evolving assessment of his own tortured emotions amid the breakup of all he ever cherished.

Lamb takes a major risk in alienating his readers by inserting the grandfather's manuscript into latter portions of the novel. It's the stark story of a selfish, arrogant man, whose life was one long disaster. He's not easy to like, and for a while, readers may want to skip over his story. But Lamb, working with the skill of an accomplished architect in full control of his tools, manages to tie up all the loose ends.

At times, "I Know This Much Is True" reads like the outline for a movie, packed as it is with one spectacular emotion after another. Lamb has the ability to create complicated and sometimes vexing characters who must work to gain the reader's sympathies. His writing is never less than superb, and he accepts the challenge of such a wide-screen novel with confidence and stunning abilities to keep the enthralled reader turning pages.

The New York Times review of this novel observed that "Lamb clearly aims to be a modern-day Dostoyevsky with a pop sensibility." The novel takes the attitude that not only are our lives crowded with tragedies and disappointments, but that we also must deal with the assaults of dysfunctional family members and loved ones. God seems unnecessarily sadistic to Domenick, who nevertheless finds that to find solace he must turn to Him.

Cincinnati native David Dick achieved renown as a respected correspondent for CBS Television News, where he received an Emmy for covering the attempted assassination of Alabama Gov. George Wallace. Upon Dick's retirement in 1985, he went to the University of Kentucky and eventually was named director of the school of journalism there. After stints as a columnist and weekly newspaper publisher, Dick now plows new ground with his first novel.

"The Scourges of Heaven" (University of Kentucky Press, $22) tells the fascinating story of the cholera epidemic that ravaged the Kentucky bluegrass region during the nineteenth century. The idea for the novel came about as Dick spent ten years searching for information about his great-grandmother, Cynthia Anne. She lived from 1830 to 1865, but Dick wondered what had happened to her first husband and their son. "I finally concluded that they had died in one of the Asiatic cholera epidemics."

The novel follows Cynthia Anne as she journeys from New Orleans to Kentucky, in hopes of escaping from the disease. She didn't know that the epidemic had preceded her, turning the city of Lexington into a virtual ghost town. "The Scourges of Heaven" relates the fictional story of Cynthia Anne and her neighbors who combated a disease they didn't understand. Under primitive medical conditions of the time, many chose to blame the avalanche of deaths upon divine judgment.

The novel points out that religious beliefs can have a tremendous effect on their followers, especially when such beliefs encourage superstition instead of promoting knowledge. Dick writes with an easy authority, a sense of humor in the midst of horrors, and the book promises a bright new career for a man of many achievements.

There's never enough time and space to devote to the excellent books of poetry that arrive on my doorstep regularly. Here are a few of the best recent titles from the distinguished New Directions publishing house.

James Laughlin, founder of New Directions, died last year after a distinguished career as a poet. "James Laughlin: Poems New and Selected" ($12.95) is a handsome tribute to this wonderful writer.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti continues a career that sprang to public notice with his influential book, "A Coney Island of the Mind." Easily one of the most popular living poets, Ferlinghetti demonstrates his power and humor with "A Far Rockaway of the Heart" ($10.95), his fourteenth collection.

The wonderful H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) continues to attract readers 37 years after her death. The reissue of her classic, "Trilogy" ($10.95) should bring her new fans as well as allowing her loyal followers the benefit of a handsome new paperback edition. The book contains, besides the epic poem, a new 32-page Reader's Notes, a short biography, and an introduction by H.D. scholar Aliki Barnstone. "Trilogy" long has been considered one of the poetic masterpieces of the century.

Austrian genius Peter Handke not only writes great poetry, he has written novels and plays, collaborated with Wim Wenders on screenplays, directed films and has completed translations of Aesychylus and the novels of Walker Percy. "Once Again for Thucydides" ($18.95) describes Handke's life from 1987 through 1990, a period when he left his native country for a world tour. The book consists of 17 short journals, each concentrating on the natural world he observed from Japan to Spain, then back to the Balkans.

I Know This Much Is True

________________________________________________