Chang and Eng Bunker (1811-1874) are doubtless the most celebrated conjoined twins in history. Born in what is now Thailand, they were brought to the United States in 1829 under the partnership of Scottish merchant Robert Hunter and American sea captain Abel Coffin. They toured the US and much of Europe, retiring from showmanship in 1839, settling near Wilkesboro, North Carolina, where they became farmers and slaveholders. With some accompanying controversy, they married sisters Sarah and Adelaide Yates and eventually fathered 21 children between them. They died within hours of one another in 1874. (For more details on the Bunkers’ lives, see Part 4 of CONJOINED, “Chang & Eng: In Fact.”)
As unusual as the Bunkers’ lives were, filled with fascinating details, world travel, encounters with royalty, and the titillating speculations surrounding their bedroom activities, it may come as a surprise that they have directly inspired only two novels–and both of those published very recently, within two years of one another. Chang & Eng (pub. by Dutton Adult in 2000; reissued by Plume, May 2001, 323 pp trade ppbk, $15) was written by Darin Strauss; God’s Fool (pub. by Knopf in 2002; reissued by Vintage, Jul 2003, 288 pp trade ppbk, $13) was written by Mark Slouka.
These two books make an interesting contrast. There’s an element of magical realism in both of them: Chang & Eng, with their exotic origins and unique deformity, meet the luminaries of Europe and America, but eventually make their home in provincial 18th century North Carolina. From this common theme, the two stories diverge considerably. Chang & Eng is a first-person narrative told from the viewpoint of Eng, who feels trapped by his physical attachment to the alcoholic Chang (an unsophisticated buffoon who speaks in pidgin English); God’s Fool is told from the standpoint of a thoughtful Chang, alienated by his brother’s increasingly pious Christianity. (In fact, one of the sensationalist speculations included in contemporary real-life coverage of the Bunkers involved the fate of their souls should one accept Christ and the other reject Him.)
Neither novelist shows slavish fidelity to the historical facts; indeed, both use what is known of the Bunkers’ lives as a starting point, and feel free to contradict reality or create new situations if it serves a dramatic purpose. For example, in Chang & Eng, the brothers are imprisoned by the King of Siam, when in actuality they were summoned to his palace for a brief audience; in God’s Fool, the Siamese Twins ride into the thick of the Civil War in a foolhardy attempt to stop Chang’s underage son Christopher from enlisting in the Confederate Army; in reality the brothers stayed home and well away from military engagements, while Christopher (who was 18 years old by 1863) went to war, presumably with his father’s blessing. (Both Chang and Eng owned slaves, and by all accounts were enthusiastic partisans for the Southern Cause.) In Chang & Eng, the Twins are depicted as having to perform in a cage for raucous audiences; in fact, their tours were more civilized affairs. In God’s Fool, the boys are abandoned by Hunter and Coffin in London, where they descend into a Dickensian nightmare before being rescued by an agent of P.T. Barnum; historically, it’s well-established that the boys toured under the aegis of Abel Coffin until they turned 21, after which they declared themselves independent and eventually became American citizens.
Neither Strauss nor Slouka shies away from speculating as to the sex lives of the Siamese Twins. Given that the brothers were joined at the chest by a five-inch-long band of flesh and were perpetually turned slightly toward one another, a great number of questions arise as to how conjugal visits were arranged with their wives. Very little biographical detail is available in this regard, but both Strauss and Slouka provide respectful, but detailed, fictional explorations. In Chang & Eng, Strauss emphasizes Eng’s disillusionment with his marriage to Adelaide (which nonetheless produced ten children!), and his subsequent secret obsession with his brother’s wife Sarah. Slouka does not delve much into the Bunkers’ married lives, focusing instead on Eng’s fictitious–and crushingly tragic–affair with a French socialite.
It’s difficult to judge which of these two novels is better. Chang & Eng is a more or less straightforward historical novel, the chapters alternating between the Twins’ time in North Carolina and their earlier adventures. God’s Fool is more roundabout, and (believe it or not) focuses less on the Twins’ conjoined predicament and more on what it means to be a slaveholder. God’s Fool is also far more lyrical and stylistic than Chang & Eng.
And while it’s unfair to judge a historical novel–especially one that makes no claim to stick to pure biography–Strauss’s Chang & Eng can be fairly criticized for its numerous anachronisms and factual errors. During Chang and Eng’s early years in America (say, in the 1830s), Strauss has them inspected by “a doctor who wore a white lab coat.” (Doctors didn’t wear white lab coats, much less observe basic medical hygiene like the washing of hands before surgery, until after the Civil War. According to a recent article in Slate, doctors started wearing white coats in the early 20th century.) In another scene, the Bunkers face down an angry mob hell-bent on preventing their marriage to the Yates sisters: when they each fire their shotguns, Strauss has “the bullets [whistling] off into the distance.” (Shotguns don’t fire bullets.) At their marriage in 1843, Strauss has the Bunkers wearing “identical black tuxedos.” (The tuxedo, so named, didn’t make its debut until 1886.) Finally, near the book’s end, Strauss describes “ice jiggling” in Eng’s glass of scotch. Given that household refrigeration didn’t exist in the antebellum South, this seems exceedingly unlikely.
Despite their flaws and deviations, both Darin Strauss’s Chang & Eng and Mark Slouka’s God’s Fool are worthwhile books. But the world is still waiting for the definitive novel about the original Siamese Twins.
[Endnote: The only other piece of fiction directly inspired by the Siamese Twins that I am aware of is Mark Twain's satirical 1869 vignette "Personal Habits of the Siamese Twins." In it, Twain engages in such mischief as suggesting two years' difference in their ages, that they fought on opposite sides of the Civil War and mutually captured one another, and that they "never failed to sleep together since the day they were born."]
Chang & Eng is available from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.
God’s Fool is available used from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.
Links of Interest
* Part 5: Interviews with Alice Dreger & Josh Gibson [Apr 2009]
* Part 4: Chang & Eng: In Fact [Mar 2009]
* Part 3: One of Us by Alice Dreger (book review) [Mar 2009]
* Part 2: Conjoined Twins (medical text) by Rowena Spencer, M.D. [Mar 2009]
* Part 1: Conjoined Twins (encyclopedia) by Christine Quigley [Mar 2009]
* Join our Conjoined Twins discussion forum
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