The Foursome
A Novel
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- 21,99 €
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- 21,99 €
Publisher Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Christina Baker Kline comes a boldly original reimagining of the astonishing true story of two sisters in nineteenth-century North Carolina — Kline’s own distant relatives — who married world-famous conjoined twins from Siam.
When Eng and Chang Bunker arrive in Wilkes County in 1839, they’re not just a curiosity—they’re a sensation. Everyone is eager to learn whether the salacious rumors about them are true. Within months, the twins have opened a general store, bought land, and begun building a plantation. Now, word has it, they’re looking for wives—and in a place that thrives on gossip and legacy, their ambitions set the community on edge.
Sarah and Adelaide Yates, daughters of a once-prominent local family brought low by scandal, are drawn into their orbit. Bold, beautiful Adelaide sees in the twins’ fame a chance to reclaim her future. Sarah, quiet and observant, isn’t so sure. When the twins’ lives become entangled with theirs, they must navigate loyalty, longing, and identity in a world where everything—including race, class, and gender—is rigidly defined.
Spanning five decades and unfolding against the backdrop of a fractured nation hurtling toward war, The Foursome is both intimate and epic: a story of love and constraint, identity and reinvention. With piercing insight and emotional precision, Kline brings to life a forgotten chapter of American history and the complex, boundary-defying marriages at its center.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Two sisters, two conjoined brothers, and decades of marriage make for one remarkable story in this deeply felt historical novel from best-selling author Christina Baker Kline. In 1839, Chang and Eng Bunker, celebrated twins connected at the sternum, trade their careers as travelling performers for a quieter life in North Carolina, where they marry sisters Adelaide and Sarah Yates. As the couples embark on an extraordinary life of shared houses, shared beds, and 21 children between them, their country grows more divided over slavery. And the sisters’ opposing views sharpen the tensions inside their already-complicated household. Kline writes about this intimate arrangement with persistent warmth and empathy, which makes the Bunkers’ exceptional circumstances feel immediate and emotionally real. Especially the shifting bond between Sarah and Adelaide, whose sisterly love is tested by marriage, motherhood, and moral conviction. A searching, compassionate novel, The Foursome offers a fascinating look at the negotiations that hold our lives together.
