The Marvelous Hairy Girls: The Gonzales Sisters and Their Worlds

by Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks

This book tells the extraordinary story of three sixteenth-century sisters who, along with their father and brothers, were afflicted with an extremely rare genetic condition that made them unusually hairy. Amazingly, the Gonzales sisters were not mocked or shunned, but were welcomed in the courts of Europe, spending much of their lives among nobles, musicians, and artists. Their double identity as humans and beasts made them intriguing, and the girls and their father were the subjects not only of medical investigations but also of a considerable number of portraits, some of which still hang in European castles today.   Using the Gonzales family as a lens, historian Merry Wiesner-Hanks examines their varied and wondrous times. The story of this family connects with every important change of their era—political and religious violence, colonial conquest, new forms of scholarship and science—and also provides insights into the complex relationships between beastliness, monstrosity, and gender in early modern life.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Biography, Biography Memoir

250 pages, Hardcover

First published June 16, 2009

About the author

Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison) taught first at Augustana College in Illinois, and since 1985 at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where she is currently UWM Distinguished Professor in the department of history. She is the coeditor of the Sixteenth Century Journal and the author or editor of more than twenty books, most recently The Marvelous Hairy Girls: The Gonzales Sisters and Their Worlds and Gender in History. She is the former Chief Reader for Advanced Placement World History.

Reviews

[Marquise · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm starting to believe there's simply no good books out there about Petrus Gonsalvus/Pedro González and his family, and that makes me sad. Even without the "Beauty and the Beast" connection, they're a very interesting family on their own, but the books I've found so far don't do them justice and don't match the interest they spark and leave the reader dissatisfied.

As for "The Marvelous Hairy Girls," although it purports to be about the González sisters, in reality has so little about Maddalena, Francesca, and Antonietta, the daughters of Pedro. It's more a history of the times than the history of a family or its members affected by hypertrichosis (excessive hairiness). All the six sections the book is divided in are about European attitudes towards "beastliness" and deformity, myths and legends about them, their lives at court, the persecution of "monstrosities," marriage and relationships with and between people with deformities, religious attitudes, and medical practices. I suppose this helps with giving to the reader the necessary historical context, but if your desire and aim are to learn about the González women in particular, you won't get much about them here. And if you're already well-versed in their story, this won't be that useful as to new information.

I guess one has to console oneself with what little there is in the historical records about this family. Wiesner-Hanks apparently hasn't had access to some of the material other academics tackling the Gonsalvus clan have, like Zapperi and Carrasco Molina, as there are gaps in her story of the González family. Might be deliberate as well, since she's focusing on the broad picture over the personal. Either way, this was very disappointing!

[Eszter · Rating 3 out of 5]

not so much about the hairy girls as the world around them, and our worldview shaped by them and other "freaks" throughout history. meticulously researched, full of delicious factoids and figures.

[Sarah · Rating 1 out of 5]

Great topic. Bad presentation. The story of the sixteenth century Gonzales family, who became a part of Europe's noble courts due to their rare genetic condition, hypertichosis. It explains that the Gonzaleses were considered very much like wards of the court, like many other human oddities of the time, such as dwarfs. Members of family were educated and wore rich clothing, but were often traded between royal families as if they were gifts.

However, the author's search through history uncovered very little of substance on the family or their condition and it seems she really stretched the material to write this book. Most of the book is not about the Gonzales sisters but an attempt to look at how normal women of the sixteenth century were sometimes viewed as monsters, even without being hairy. It also jumps around to explain some politics and religious views of the times, but fails to relate these to the Gonzaleses. The book's target readers will be picking it up to learn about the history of a rare family, and will be disappointed to find little on them. If I'd wanted to read about socio-political status of the average 16th century European woman, I would have chosen another book.

It does have some great historical paintings of the Gonzales family. The book is worth picking up to take a look at these, but don't bother reading it.

[Bianca Stonegulch · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting subject but the author wandered off point quite a bit and then became repetitive.
It was more concerned with the question of women in 16th century Europe, and whether we were considered human, animal or something in between.
The author herself admits details about the Gozales family are sketchy at best, the best surviving record of their existence are several highly detailed portraits, so perhaps not the easiest subject with which to attempt to fill an entire book.

[reqbat · Rating 1 out of 5]

Books don’t often make me ANGRY but this one is so poorly put together and maybe addresses the topic 10% of the time?? Like sure there’s some interesting random knowledge in there, but I wanted to know about the Gonzales family, not what childbirth looked like at the time.

[Allie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The odd thing about the book is that the hairy girls become almost a secondary interest to the author's more interesting writing on how hairiness and masculinity and femininity have been connected or separate in history. The extensive research on the human curiosity cabinets kept by royalty was also fascinating. However, as she writes in the first 10 pages, we really don't know much about the hairy girls outside of a few paintings and personal accounts. I guess marvelous hairy girls was an easier book pitch than the gender issues of hairiness? Either way, great research, if even by the last few chapters I was wishing we could just forget the hairy girls entirely.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story of the Gonzales sisters, and their similarly hairy father and brother, takes up very little of the book. The author makes good use of sources from the time to show the influences acting on the people of the time. This, she states, is intended to show us how the Gonzaleses' contemporaries saw them and show them as people, not as curiosities. I consider her first goal a success, but the second fell short due to a serious lack of information.

[Lydia · Rating 4 out of 5]

this book plumbs many sources to flesh out the few known facts about the hairy gonzales family, who were kept at the court of Henry IV. the author explores numerous themes -- the other, the monster,the wild man -- and connects the role of 16th-17th c women in this admittedly patchy biography.