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Inseparable: The Original Siamese Twins and Their Rendezvous with American History by Yunte Huang - 4* - My Review

Detailed biography of Chang and Eng Bunker, conjoined twins born in a fishing village in Siam (now Thailand) in 1811. They were “discovered” by a Scottish merchant captain, who signed them to a contract, and they became his indentured servants, though they were unaware of their status at the time. They made money for the captain and his wife, and he provided them with a stipend. They were widely exhibited as “curiosities” in America and Europe. They eventually won their freedom, became naturalized American citizens, settled on a plantation in North Carolina, married, fathered twenty-one children between them, and became and slave owners.

Huang researched their lives through archives, medical records, news accounts, and the twins' own correspondences. It looks at medical debates, racial attitudes toward Asians, ethics of human exhibition, and much more. The author presents Chang and Eng as complicated individuals. They were both victims of exploitation and active participants in an oppressive system. It provides a glimpse into what it was like to live in nineteenth-century America. There are a few detours into minibiographies of notable people of the time (e.g., PT Barnum, Mark Twain, Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, Nat Turner, John Brown). The author traveled to the twins’ home in Mount Airy, NC, which he has formed into an unusual memoir-style epilogue. Chang and Eng led an interesting life. I must say I'm glad we have moved beyond the “freak show” phase.