This is an extraordinarily memorable novel that relies heavily on historical fact but creates a convincing fictional world. Chang and Eng are the original Siamese Twins. Born into desperate poverty on the banks of the Mekong river, their Mother raises them in seclusion, protecting their early childhood from knowledge of their own uniqueness. When the King of Siam learns of their existence, he orders them killed but wishes to view them first. The boys are taken, at the age of seven to his palace where they manage to amuse him enough for their lives to be spared. They are kept captive for seven years, the beginning of a lifetime of exhibitions, humiliations and the torment of recognizing the deep revulsion their deformity arouses in others. But this is much more than a historical document cataloguing their extraordinary lives. Strauss uses the cartilaginous band which connects the two boys across the chests as a metaphor for the paradox of human experience; the existential sense of aloneness versus the yearning to be loved and as close to an 'other' as possible. The novel is written as a parallel sequence of flashbacks narrating the first 30 years of Chang and Eng's life alongside the subsequent marriage and family life they created. This is a very effective way to render bearable the sense of horror the reader feels at the almost incomprehensible burden of their life and its inevitable tragedy. A sensitive and intelligently imagined novel, which is even more remarkable for being the author's first. (Kirkus UK)

An imposingly original first novel that focuses on unique historical figures: the eponymous Siamese twin brothers (181174) who endured opprobrium and despair, became international celebrities, married two American sisters, and fathered 21 children between them.Their amazing story is told by Eng, the more introspective and articulate of the brothers (who are joined at the chest by a fleshy ligament that gradually expands to permit them to rest side by side rather than facing). Eng's narrative, which begins with `the event I have feared since we were a child,` consists of two extended parallel stories: that of the twins' childhood on a houseboat on the Mekong River, appropriation by the epicurean King of Siam, at whose court they are educated and indulged, and their career as traveling `freaks` in America (where showman P.T. Barnum covets their services) and abroad; and that of their adult life in antebellum North Carolina, where they marry the aforementioned (Yates) sisters, prosper as hog farmers and slave owners, and eventually `separate` emotionally, as the ingenuous Chang sinks into alcoholism and Eng must wrestle with both his brother's degradation and his own guilty lust for his brother's wife. In harrowing detail, Strauss has imagined the physical adjustments required of the twins to perform even the simplest quotidian tasks, as well as the psychic strain their `monstrous` condition creates, and he explores with cool precision the equally crippling temperamental contrasts between Chang's ebullient naivet and Eng's increasing capacity for deceit and emotional coldness. Occasionally the author shows his hand too plainly (for example, when Eng observes that `The birth of our children intersected with an odd time for America`). Nonetheless, he presents with impressive delicacy and restraint the unavoidable felt connection between the American Civil War and the brothers' own simultaneously united and divided state.Admirably researched, continuously absorbing, and very moving indeed. (Kirkus Reviews)