In 'The Foursome,' conjoined twins marry two sisters — and that's just the beginning
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What is Christina Baker Kline’s new novel “The Foursome” about and why is it relevant?
Hi, I'm Melissa Nadwarney and this is NPR's book of the day. This next book is Wild. It's fiction, but it's based on a true story. It's about conjoined twins and their wives, who are sisters, hence the title The Forsome. The sisters, who are actually distant relatives of the author, Christina Baker Klein, married the famous twins from Siam, which is now Thailand, in the eighteen hundreds. The novel spans five decades and imagines what their story was. Baker Klein spoke with Weekend Edition's Aisha Rosca.
Hey, it's Latif from Radio Lab. Our goal with each episode is to make you think, how did I live this long and not know that? Radio Lab. Adventures on the edge of what we think we know. Listen wherever you get podcasts.
Why did Sarah choose an unmarked grave and what does it reveal about the family’s history?
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In a cemetery in Mount Ary, North Carolina, there's a headstone for Chang and Aang Bunker, the famous conjoined twins, and their wives who were sisters. But only three people were laid to rest there.
Sarah, the wife of Eng, chose to be buried in an unmarked grave on her own property, Along with the four daughters who died before her and the formerly enslaved people who after the civil war came back to the farm.
Who were Chang and Eng Bunker and how did they become famous conjoined showmen?
Nobody really knows why.
This got author Christina Baker Klein thinking of the reason Sarah might have separated herself in death. And she began to write a novel about the lives of Chang and Aang and Adelaide and Sarah called The Forsome.
Sinful, perverted, mad. Those were some of the things people said about us. When word spread That the four of us shared one bed. Our good neighbors' imaginations ran wild. Rumors flew about incest, unnatural relations, adultery, all kinds of depravities. No respectable woman would permit such an abomination. No God-fearing family would allow it. Eventually our neighbors got used to us.
What motivated the sisters Adelaide and Sarah to marry the conjoined twins in the 1800s South?
They stopped asking questions. Even so we were never fully accepted. We existed in an uneasy in between. On the fringes of polite society? Yet but bound by its rules.
Who were Chang and Aang Bunker? Because these were real people. What is actually known about them in their lives?
Chiang and Anang Bunker were born in eighteen eleven in a small fishing village in what was then Siam, Thailand. Both had two arms, two legs, two heads and were joined simply by a band of cartilage right below their ribs on one side. So Chang and Nang happened to be joined in a way that enabled them to go fishing and to build houses and to hunt and to earn a living in all kinds of ways. They were acrobats.
How does the novel handle the paradox of the twins owning slaves after being exploited themselves?
They did backflips and somersaults and all kinds of stuff. So They were very savvy, by the way, very smart, very charming. Everyone loved them. And this British merchant was sailing down the river. And he saw them from a distance and I think he immediately saw dollar signs. And he spent the next few years convincing their mother and the king. to let them go with him so that he could take them all over the world. He paid their mother more than she could have seen in a lifetime and They quite quickly realized that they were being taken advantage of. And it really wasn't that long before they rested their lives away from this manager who was, you know, traveling first class while they were in steerage.
What does the author want listeners to understand about the twins’ personalities and their individuality?
And they began taking control of their destiny. And they made a lot of money. They retired at the age of twenty nine to northwestern North Carolina.
And that's where they meet Adelaide and Sarah, who's known as Sally, the two sisters that they marry, they're actually your distant cousins. Right. What motivated two white conventional women to marry outside their race in the South in the mid eighteen hundreds. W was it the money?
Honestly, that was such a huge question for the book.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is Christina Baker Kline’s new novel “The Foursome” about and why is it relevant?
0:02–0:53
2
Why did Sarah choose an unmarked grave and what does it reveal about the family’s history?
0:53–1:51
3
Who were Chang and Eng Bunker and how did they become famous conjoined showmen?
1:51–2:40
4
What motivated the sisters Adelaide and Sarah to marry the conjoined twins in the 1800s South?
2:40–3:29
5
How does the novel handle the paradox of the twins owning slaves after being exploited themselves?
3:29–4:16
6
What does the author want listeners to understand about the twins’ personalities and their individuality?
4:16–6:11
7
How have the Bunker descendants responded to the book and what insights did they provide?
6:11–8:17
8
What lasting lessons does “The Foursome” offer about race, marriage, and identity in American history?
8:17–10:43
Speakers
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