Rating: 
Summary: JUST WE TWO...
Review: This is an ambitious and intriguing debut novel, which is based upon conjoined twins, Chang and Eng, who were born in Siam during the nineteenth century. It is through them that the term "Siamese Twins" entered the vernacular. Here, the author takes known facts about these famous twins and weaves an expertly woven story about their lives, while attempting to individualize them, giving each of them their own distinct and unique personality.
The author tells the story of the conjoined twins through the first person narration of Eng. Born in 1811 in a house boat on the Mekong River in Siam, which is now known as Thailand, Chang and Eng entered the world linked together at the chest by a fleshy band of cartilage. It would be this short band of flesh that would forever bind them together, ensuring that they would never have a truly private moment. For their entire lives, they would be bound to each other, and the two would be forced to live as one.
The author explores their private and often strange lives, which the reader views through Eng's eyes. It is through his intimate thoughts that the reader envisions how the twins may have possibly viewed their own lives. The reader follows the path that their lives took, from their poverty stricken childhood on the Mekong River to their presentation to the King of Siam. It then shows how, as adolescents, they came to arrive in America, where they were displayed as oddities. Eventually, they became an international sensation, becoming nineteenth century celebrities.
Amazingly, they went on to marry two sisters, Adelaide and Sarah, with whom they fathered a total of twenty-one children. Chang and Eng set up house in North Carolina, where they raised their family. Still, this book is not so much about the factual portion of their lives, but rather, about the thoughts of Eng, as he and Chang pass through life together. It is a very intimate, insightful look at their lives and, in particular, the longings of Eng to experience life as most do, as one and not as two.
This is a well-written and delicately nuanced work of historical fiction that is highly imaginative. Instead of having the reader remain on the outside of the lives of Chang and Eng, looking in, the author manages to take the reader into their lives, having the reader look out onto the world from the perspective of Eng. Through Eng, the reader sees the twins as having two very distinct and unique personalities and realizes the angst that they must have experienced in never being able to have a truly private moment. At times, Chang and Eng appear to have had a love-hate relationship. This is a poignant and haunting look at these two individuals, who were, by necessity, constrained to live as one.
For those who are intrigued by the lives of Chang and Eng, but would prefer a purely biographical treatment, "The Two" by Irving Wallace and Amy Wallace is excellent and highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: If you want your voyeuristic side satisfied.. . .
Review: this is the book for you. Strauss knows that as soon as anyone hears that Chang and Eng were married and had 21 children between them the possible "mechanics" of that situation immediately spring to mind. Strauss does not let the reader down--he describes their sex lives vividly and dwells extensively on Chang's problem with alcohol. For all that though, I found some of the characters strangely flat. Eng's wife Sarah was not in a scene in the entire book when she did not complain about stomach problems. It was repetitive in the extreme. Chang's alcoholism also was described so often and in such detail that it became monotonous.
I found the narrative structure very choppy, as it jumped between their lives as young men and the present lives they led as old men and slaveholders.
An okay book, but deeply flawed in many ways.
Rating:
Summary: Intriguing and Entertaining
Review: When I was a little girl, the Guinness Book of World Records fascinated me. I have very vivid memories of staring, intrigued, at the photo of Chang and Eng Bunker, the "first" Siamese twins. That very same photo now sits on the cover of Darin Strauss' elegantly written novel, *Chang and Eng*. I suppose that fascination is what drew me to read the book, and Strauss does not disappoint.The story really belongs to Eng, the more serious (and less prone to drink), brother. He struggles throughout with conflicting feelings of love for his brother and his passionate desire to be free of him. (If you've read *I Know This Much To Be True* by Wally Lamb, this is reminiscent of the lead character's conflicted relationship with his schizophrenic twin, though Eng's struggle is further complicated by the simple fact that he physically *cannot* leave his brother.) Eng also struggles with his feelings of desire for his brother's wife, and with his need to be respected as an intelligent man, not a spectacle. While I cannot say how much more I truly know about the Bunkers given that this is not a biography but a novel, I was intrigued and entertained by both the story and Strauss' graceful language.
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