I read this novel in tandem with a biography, The Two by Irving Wallace and Amy Wallace, published in 1978. I would highly recommend that other readers of Chang and Eng do so also. The story of the original Siamese, conjoined, twins who traveled the world and settled in the mountains of North Carolina, marrying sisters, and raising 22 children between them is fascinating. Strauss' account is reflective (and may be more reflective of the author than the subjects), and the non-fiction story if anything is more fascinating. ( )

This was one of the few books for which I have come close to regretting the purchase. Beautiful prose, to a fault.

I was not engaged in the story in the least, but every time I would think that it was time to put the book down and never pick it up again, a passage would strike me deep. I would have to keep reading, only to go through the cycle many more times.

Strauss has a strong voice and a deep appreciation of how words can be used together to form a bond with the reader, but his choice in the actual story left much to be desired from this reader. ( )

Think of all the literary characters who burn bright in your brain long after you’ve turned the last page of the novel: Ishmael (as in “Call me…�), the Snopses, Emma Bovary, Garp.

Get ready to add one more name to that list: Eng Bunker.

Eng is one half of the original* Siamese twins, born in 1811 (*they were the duo for whom the term was coined). He and his permanently-attached brother Eng escaped from Thailand (the former Siam) when they were teenagers and came to America where they were promptly exploited as sideshow freaks. After years of sitting in a filthy cage and being ogled by the frightened and fascinated crowds, they got a better agent—P.T. Barnum—and went on lecture tours around America and Europe.

In real life, the twins were also used as political metaphor. In a speech to Congress, Daniel Webster made a speech condemning separatists by using Chang and Eng as an example: “Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!" Webster cried.

In 1843, during one of the strangest weddings this side of the Rev. Moon’s, Chang and Eng married sisters Adelaide and Sarah Yates, sisters living in North Carolina. The Bunker quartet settled into domestic life as farmers. The two couples bore 22 children between them (no pun intended) before the conjoined twins died in 1874.

These are the kind of facts you’ll find in most encyclopedias or The Guinness Book of World Records. What you won’t find, however, is a life that’s as vivid and unforgettable as the one on the pages of Darin Strauss’ debut novel Chang and Eng, narrated by Eng—a character who comes off as the smarter of the two. I guarantee you won’t come across a more compelling character in any current fiction vying for your attention in the local bookstore.

Strauss, a New York University grad, was inspired to write a fictionalized version of the twins’ life after he saw an episode of Oprah featuring conjoined siblings. In the middle of their interview, one set of twins jumped up and said at the very same time: “We’re a big girl now.� In an interview on his website, Strauss remarks, “That sentence seemed a wonderful mystery to me.�

That same mysterious dichotomy pervades every page of Chang and Eng, starting with the novel’s first sentence in which Eng lays on his deathbed: This is the end I have feared since we were a child. Just look at all the conflicting pronouns rubbing up against each other in those twelve words.

Strauss maintains that sense of irony and duplicity throughout the remaining 322 pages. Shifting back and forth chronologically from Chang and Eng’s married life to the events of their sideshow past, the author paints a portrait of 19th-century American life that is nothing less than inky fireworks bursting across every page. His expansive, old-fashioned style reminds me of two other excellent examples of recent historic fiction: Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden) and Cloudsplitter (Russell Banks).

Here, for example, is how Strauss describes the turmoil of humanity on board a Mississippi riverboat:

The fat, cigar-smoking gambler, in the market for a tourist to fleece; the stoop-backed farmer, clutching his modest harvest and looking nervously about; the crewman, sneering as he passed; the lady of the evening in her narrow bonnet, at work in the uglying light of day; the sightseer eyeing this harlot before turning back to his wife and children with displeasure; above all, the whole of this mass of shabby-clothed unfortunates, casting furtive glances around, reeking of threadbare unclean clothes and the perspiration of close contact, chatting or sleeping or making way for any and all flotsam being pushed aboard—these were what gave the main deck its particular character.

“The uglying light of day.� When I read a phrase like that, my writer’s heart groans with jealousy.

There’s much for fellow authors to be envious of here in these pages. Strauss has such a confident, capable hand that I doubt his pen wavered once in the three years it took to compose the book. Okay, I’m sure that’s not exactly true and Mr. Strauss himself would be the first to assure me that there were rough patches. But, remarkably, none of those rough patches turned up during my quick and breathless reading of Chang and Eng.

By its nature, the story is a fascinating one and Strauss turns it into something resembling a sophisticated parlor entertainment—a cross between Jerry Springer and Charles Dickens (if you can stomach that comparison). We’re there to witness the frightening birth of the “unholy double-freak� to a poor Mekong River fisherman and his wife; we watch as the young boys learn to adapt to life with bodies “affixed at the chest by a fleshy, bendable, seven-inch-long ligament resembling a forearm;� we bite our lip at the way they escape a death threat from King Rama of Siam only to suffer equal miseries at the hands of the tabloid-souled American public; we groan at the medical experiments and botched attempts to separate them; we see them gain prominence as they perform their coordinated tumbling act for Queen Victoria, Tsar Nicholas and Roget (the thesaurus guy); our eyes widen as they meet the Yates sisters and Chang is the first to fall in love (with Adelaide) and then—as if he had any choice in the matter—Eng is dragged along (trailing by a mere seven inches) into a double date with Adelaide’s reserved sister Sarah; our eyes get even wider as they marry, have sex and raise a circus-sized family.

The sex—oh, yes, the sex. Brace yourselves, readers. You’ve never witnessed sex scenes like these in any other literature. Chang, Eng and their wives work out very precise sleeping arrangements so that neither brother could be guilty of adultery. I won’t spoil the pleasures of Strauss’ narrative, but I can guarantee they are the strangest lovemaking descriptions you’ve ever read. Yet, they’re also tender and poignant; Eng’s voice swells with hot-blooded, breath-catching fervor when he translates the pleasures of the body. Here’s one small example of what you’re in for:

Sarah climbed onto the bed and shuffled to me on all fours. And she kissed me. I savored it with my entire body. A spasm fired in my lower half, my stomach filled with thunder and lightning, my head was in a spin, and I swore my ribs were cheering like the court of King Rama.

There are dozens of brow-mopping passages like that sprinkled throughout Chang and Eng.

There’s plenty of humor, too. Here’s one cutting remark Adelaide uses to describe her husband and brother-in-law (by this time, relations have grown prickly between all four partners):

“You’all want to know how to tell them apart?� Adelaide said. “One makes you angry when he talks, the other’s a little better on the nerves, but he tosses around so much Shakespeare it can put you to sleep. If you’re angry and asleep, it’s a sure bet they’re probably both talking.�

Chang and Eng’s greatest triumph is the way it cleaves the two brothers into distinct characters. Chang is the simpler half of the pair, never fully grasping the English language, never thinking things through, never knowing when to keep his mouth shut. Eng is bookish, level-headed and increasingly agitated at his other half’s recklessness. Imagine an equal-sized Laurel and Hardy joined by a strip of flesh and you’ll get some idea of the twins’ opposing natures.

Of course irony abounds on every page. Where Chang goes, Eng must follow. When Chang turns into an alcoholic, Eng joins a Temperance Society (this is a documented fact). Eng wants to zig, Chang prefers to zag. Through it all, we have Eng’s compelling narrative voice telling us how he yearns to be free of his brotherly bondage. The fact that part of the novel takes place during the Civil War is not inconsequential (though Strauss never addresses the popular legend that the brothers fought on separate sides).

In the end, Strauss does the miraculous: he manages to do what several doctors and dozens of historians could not—he separates Chang and Eng into two distinct, unforgettable people. ( )