Twins

A memoir

By Teresa Robertson

Twins is a quintessentially English coming of age graphic memoir about family, memory and the post war generation, capturing the fragility of life with warmth, wit and quiet emotion.

Teresa and her twin brother Adam grew up inseparable. They were creative, unruly, and shaped by bohemian parents who first fell in love designing theatre sets in the 1950s. Raised on art over ambition and family over money, the twins stick out wherever they go, but they always have each other.

As Teresa stumbles through squats, unsuitable men, and the slow business of growing up, one thing never wavers: Adam is always there. Then, just as she’s expecting her first child, he is killed in a motorbike accident at 28, and the story becomes something else entirely: a reckoning with grief, fate, and the strange, quiet signs that seem to follow in his wake.

Spanning six decades, Twins is a warm, funny, and unflinchingly honest account of one family’s unravelling and remaking – of babies becoming parents, of loss folding into renewal, and of a bond that death cannot quite sever.

About Teresa Robertson

Teresa Robertson is a professional illustrator whose clients have included the British Council. Her ability to capture likeness in people has been honed in the London district of Highbury, where she is known for her portraits of families in their homes. She was a finalist in the John Ruskin Prize in 2015 and exhibited in ‘The Inking Woman’, at the Cartoon Museum in London, in 2017. She has an MA from Anglia Ruskin University in children’s book illustration.

Her previous work, ‘Dying’ was shortlisted for the Observer Cape short graphic story competition and ‘Tarquin’ was a finalist . ‘Dying‘ was then also a finalist in the John Ruskin Prize 2016. In 2023, SelfMadeHero commissioned her to illustrate a chart of ‘The British Monarchy from Alfred the Great to Charles III‘.

Twins – A memoir is her first book to be published by Mensch.

News & Reviews

Download the Press Release for Twins here.
Find out more about the author on her website at www.teresa-robertson.org.
“The tragic but also joyous story at the heart of this memoir makes it an unforgettable celebration of birth and death.” Corinne Pearlman, First Graphic Novel Award
“Beautifully drawn, in a style reminiscent of both Posy Simmonds and Raymond Briggs.” Edward Picot, Broken Frontier. Read the full review here.
Read the interview and review by Jonathan Sandler on GraphicMEMOIRBlog here: Teresa Robertson’s Memoir Twins: Family, Loss and Britishness. Sandler writes: “Twins is a memoir about growing up in Britain in the 1970s, coming of age and sibling relationships. There is a strong sense of Britishness running through the book. Robertson captures the world of the post-war generation and the emerging baby boomers with warmth, humour and an eye for the small details of everyday life. Beneath the humour, however, is a much darker story about devastating loss and learning to live with grief. It is this combination of humour, humanity and emotional honesty that makes Twins such an engaging read.”
Read an interview with Teresa Robertson by Amaris Ketcham on autobiographix. Ketcham writes: “Twins is a wide-ranging graphic memoir about family, grief, and how life can juxtapose devastating loss with hopeful beginnings.”