Inseparable: The Original Siamese Twins and Their Rendezvous with American History

"What a dramatic story, and way to look at America. They arrived as freaks, winning freedom from the oppressive men who brought them from Thailand for a traveling show, until they married two sisters who bore them 21 children, two of whom served in the Confederate army. After the Civil War, the Bunkers lost their money and went back on the road as entertainment, often accompanied by several of their children along for display. By mimicking Southern gentry, they challenged what we think of as ‘normal.’ Huang has a full command of the Bunkers’ dramatic story of how these oppressed men became oppressors. “By mimicking Southern gentry, they challenged what we think of as ‘normal’” As incredible as Chang and Eng’s story was to read, I gravitated toward Huang’s footnotes which revealed both his far-reaching research, his fidelity to fact and creative location of sources. As I read biographies, I often begin with footnotes. I’m eager to discern the reliability and originality of sources, and Huang’s research stretched from the rivers of Siam—now Thailand—to the hamlets of North Carolina, specifically the Bunker’s houses located in the town on which Andy Griffith’s Mayberry was modelled. The research into that Tar Heel culture is completely fascinating, and Huang really dug into the Bunker’s meticulously maintained financial records. As our reviewer Ann Fabian wrote in The National Book Review , Huang provided a master class in decoding financial ledgers. Although the twins were inseparable, he made us see them as separate people, and their story is rich with irony, right down to marrying Southern belle sisters. Right? An image that it hard to shake, and prompts readers to ask themselves about the power of blanking out, and psychological removal more generally. Inseparable is so rich in its exploration of inclusion and exclusion, the hierarchy of ethnicity, and the shifting dynamics of power."