Inseparable : the original Siamese twins and their rendezvous with American history

Library	Collection	Collection	Call Number	Status
Searching... Beale Memorial Library (Kern Co.)	Searching... Unknown	Adult Non-Fiction	616.043092 HUA	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Clovis Branch Library (Fresno Co.)	Searching... Unknown	Non-fiction Area	616.04309 HUA	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Livingston Branch Library (Merced Co.)	Searching... Unknown	Non-Fiction	616.043 HUA	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Merced Main Library (Merced Co.)	Searching... Unknown	Non-Fiction	616.043 HUA	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Oakhurst Branch (Madera Co.)	Searching... Unknown	Adult Non-fiction	616.043092 HUA	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Ridgecrest Branch Library (Kern Co.)	Searching... Unknown	Adult Non-Fiction	616.043092 HUA	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Woodward Park Library (Fresno Co.)	Searching... Unknown	Non-fiction Area	616.04309 HUA	Searching... Unknown

Nearly a decade after his triumphant Charlie Chan biography,Yunte Huang returns with this long-awaitedportrait of Chang and Eng Bunker (1811-1874), twinsconjoined at the sternum by a band of cartilage and a fusedliver, who were "discovered" in Siam by a British merchant in1824. Bringing an Asian American perspective to this almostimplausible story, Huang depicts the twins, arriving in Bostonin 1829, first as museum exhibits but later as financially savvyshowmen who gained their freedom and traveled the backroadsof rural America to bring "entertainment" to the Jacksonianmobs. Their rise from subhuman, freak-show celebrities to richsouthern gentry; their marriage to two white sisters, resulting intwenty-one children; and their owning of slaves, is here not justanother sensational biography but a Hawthorne-like excavationof America's historical penchant for finding feast in the abnormal,for tyrannizing the "other"--a tradition that, as Huangreveals, becomes inseparable from American history itself.

Author Notes

Yunte Huang , a Guggenheim Fellow, has taught at Harvard and the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he is a Distinguished Professor of English. The author of the Edgar Award-winning biography Charlie Chan and Inseparable, both NBCC finalists, Huang speaks frequently about American popular culture.

Reviews (5)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Guggenheim Fellow Huang (Charlie Chan) offers a fresh perspective on the lives of the famous conjoined twins, Chang and Eng Bunker, that focuses on two 19th-century trends: Americans' celebration of white individualism and their desire for entertainment, especially at freak shows. Born in Siam (now Thailand) in 1811, Chang and Eng arrived in the U.S. in 1829, under contract with a Scottish merchant named Robert Hunter for exhibition as curiosities. The appearances of the two young men in major U.S. cities sparked numerous public discussions about religion, the soul, and individuality. The liveliest parts of the book capture the exhibitions, which continued for a decade. More sobering is Huang's recounting of how race affected the twins' lives. Shocked to learn that, because they were Asian, most Americans considered them enslaved workers, Chang and Eng insisted on an improved business contract in 1832. Testing the boundaries of racial conventions, they married two white sisters in North Carolina in 1843, purchased slaves, and supported the Confederacy. The lives of Chang and Eng brilliantly shine here. Illus. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Kirkus Review

The fascinating story of conjoined twins Chang and Eng Bunker (1811-1874), who became wealthy celebrities in Jacksonian America.When Chang and Eng were 17, they left their native Siam under contract to showmen who planned to exhibit them throughout the world. Their impoverished mother was given $500 and the promise that her boys would return in five years; she never saw them again. Instead of returning home, they rose to fame and fortune in America. Huang (English/Univ. of California, Santa Barbara; Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous with American History, 2011, etc.) sets the brothers' improbable story in the context of American culture, attitudes about race and sex, and political turmoil during more than four decades of roiling change. In the author's shrewd, entertaining narrative, the twins emerge as astute businessmen who, at the age of 21, unequivocally declared their independence from exploitative managers who worked them "like a pair of mules yoked to a grindstone." Willful and determined, self-educated and articulate, they managed their careers so well that after a decade they were able to retire to a town in rural North Carolina, which later gained fame as Andy Griffith's Mayberry. The twins became naturalized citizens and owned farmland as well as slaves. They married two sisters, creating a unique "conjugal structure" that incited "insidious speculations of tabloid peddlers and curious neighbors" who were shocked at the marriage of white women to Asian men. Between them, they fathered 21 children. By the 1850s, the large brood created such tension in the families' one house that the twins set up two households, alternating three days in each conjugal bed. Staunch Confederates during the Civil War, they saw their wealth plummet after the South lost, forcing them on the road once again. This time, though, they struggled to find an audience, eventually performing in a German circus; now elderly, they were deemed "pathetic," "freakish and tasteless."A vivid portrayal of the trials and triumphs of two determined men. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Booklist Review

Their names were Chang and Eng. They were conjoined twins from Thailand, which in the early nineteenth century was known as the Kingdom of Siam hence the term Siamese twins. They were two complete men joined by cartilage at the sternum and by a fused liver. They were born in 1811, died in 1874, and, for a time, were as famous as any internet celebrity today. In this new biography, Huang (author of the Edgar Award-winning Charlie Chan, 2010) tells two stories: of Chang and Eng, the ordinary men who married, fathered children, and struggled to make a living; and of the international celebrities who toured the world, putting themselves on display as human oddities. It's a story, too, of a bygone era, a pre-radio, pre-television, pre-internet age when it was considered legitimate entertainment to gawk at people who were different. Huang offers a vivid portrait of two men who did the best they could to live ordinary lives, and a revealing look at a somewhat scandalous side of the prim-and-proper Victorian Era.--Pitt, David Copyright 2018 Booklist

New York Review of Books Review

THE OUTSIDER, by Stephen King. (Scribner, $30.) When police officers arrest a small-town English teacher and Little League coach for murder, the case looks watertight. But this isn't a police procedural, it's a Stephen King novel; so nothing, of course, is what it seems. OUR KIND OF CRUELTY, by Araminta Hall. (MCD/Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $26.) In this searing, chilling sliver of perfection about a toxic relationship, the man is the crazy psychopath - or is he? That doubt lingers all the way through the stunning final pages of a book that may well turn out to be the year's best thriller. SAVING CENTRAL PARK: A History and a Memoir, by Elizabeth Barlow Rogers. (Knopf, $30.) The inspiring story of how one woman, in the face of considerable resistance, created a partnership to privately augment the funding and management of Manhattan's beloved park, rescuing what had become "a ragged 843acre wasteland." ROBIN, by Dave Itzkoff. (Times/Holt, $30.) A generous, appreciative biography of Robin Williams by a New York Times culture reporter. The author, who had access to Williams and members of the comedian's family, is an unabashed fan but doesn't shy away from the abundant messiness in his subject's personal life. INSEPARABLE: The Original Siamese Twins and Their Rendezvous With American History, by Yunte Huang. (Liveright, $28.95.) In Huang's hands, the story of the conjoined twins Chang and Eng is as much an account of 19th-century American culture as a tale of exploited individuals who themselves became exploiters. SABRINA, by Nick Drnaso. (Drawn and Quarterly, $27.95.) This graphic novel is a Midwestern gothic tale for our times, recounting the story of a woman's disappearance and murder, seen through the eyes of her bereaved boyfriend as he watches the trolls and conspiracy theorists dissect her death online. It's a shattering work of art. SOME TRICK: Thirteen Stories, by Helen DeWitt. (New Directions, $22.95.) DeWitt's manic, brilliant new collection explores her interest in "fiction that shows the way mathematicians think." Populated by genW'ršíš? iuses and virtuosos, the stories are zanily cerebral " and proceed with fractal precision. PATRIOT NUMBER ONE: American Dreams in Chinatown, by Lauren Hilgers. (Crown, $27.) This deeply reported account tracks an immigrant couple's struggle to remake their lives in America while staying connected to their hometown in China. SECRET SISTERS OF THE SALTY SEA, by Lynne Rae Perkins. (Greenwillow, $16.99; ages 8 to 12.) An exquisite summer story about a girl's first beach vacation, in which she discovers the wonders of the ocean and shifts in sisterly bonds. The full reviews of these and other recent books are on the web: nytimes.com/books

Library Journal Review

Chang and Eng Bunker became part of American culture in 1824 when they were brought over from Siam, now Thailand, to become sideshow spectacles. While the conjoined brothers have been the subject of numerous books, including Darrin Strauss's fictional take on their life, Chang and Eng, Huang (English, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara; Charlie Chan) reexamines the twins' lives in both a historical and cultural context. The author looks past their celebrity to explore how two immigrants were able to free themselves from their manager to become slave-owning plantation proprietors in North Carolina in the years before the Civil War. The narrative follows the Bunkers on their trip across Jacksonian America, viewing events and issues that helped shape the country. While the focus often shifts to these larger cultural events, Huang has placed the rise of the sideshow and "otherness" as a central aspect of the American identity. VERDICT Huang's elegantly written biography uses the life story of Chang and Eng Bunker as a critique of a young America. Highly recommended to readers of cultural history.-John Rodzvilla, Emerson Coll., Boston © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

List of Illustrations	p. ix
Preface	p. xi
Prologue: A Game on the High Seas	p. xv
Part 1 In Siam
1 Siam	p. 3
2 The Chinese Twins	p. 6
3 Cholera	p. 15
4 The King and Us	p. 20
5 Departure	p. 26
Part 2 First Years
6 A Curiosity in Boston	p. 39
7 The Monster, or Not	p. 51
8 Gotham City	p. 57
9 The City of Brotherly Love	p. 66
10 Knocking at the Gate	p. 70
11 Racial Freaks	p. 80
12 Sentimental Education	p. 89
Part 3 America on the Road
13 The Great Eclipse	p. 97
14 A Satirical Tale	p. 102
15 The Lynnfield Battle	p. 108
16 An Intimate Rebellion	p. 117
17 Old Dominion	p. 125
18 Emancipation	p. 131
19 A Parable	p. 138
20 America on the Road	p. 146
21 The Deep South	p. 163
22 Head Bumps	p. 170
Part 4 Look Homeward, Angel
23 Wilkesboro	p. 187
24 Traphill	p. 197
25 A Universal Truth	p. 206
26 Foursome	p. 225
27 Mount Airy, or Monticello	p. 235
28 The Age of Humbugs	p. 252
29 Minstrel Freaks	p. 268
Part 5 The Civil War and Beyond
30 Seeing the Elephant	p. 283
31 Reconstruction	p. 297
32 The Last Radiance of the Setting Sun	p. 306
33 Afterlife	p. 317
Epilogue: Mayberry, USA	p. 327
Acknowledgments	p. 349
Notes	p. 351
Selected Bibliography	p. 373
Index	p. 381

Available:*

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary