Review of The Foursome by Christina Baker Kline

Kline takes what might be a voyeuristic-feeling story of two North Carolina sisters (distant relations of hers) who married the world-famous conjoined twins from Siam, Chang and Eng, and builds a suitably complicated set of dynamics; a layered story of hope, emotion, and tragedy; and enough details of the time to bring it all to life.

Here's the truth: even the most extraordinary life feels ordinary when you're living it.

In The Foursome, Kline offers the imagined day-to-day reality of the real-life nineteenth-century rural North Carolina sisters--distant relatives of hers--who astonished the world when they married famous conjoined twins from Siam.

Chang and Eng Bunker were known worldwide for their enormously popular stage show, built upon the curiosity of their physical connection and the seeming impossibility of being separated.

After the twins made a home in Wilkes County, North Carolina, buying up land, slaves, and establishing themselves as increasingly powerful businessmen, word went out that they were seeking wives. And Adelaide and Sallie Yates, sisters who had been brought low in society by scandal were seeking a broader scope in their lives. (Side note, the imbalance of power of men and women and the females' responsibility to keep up appearances of piety are a rage-inducing element.)

It's strange how relief and longing can live side by side in the same heart.

Kline paints a fascinating story of of the uncommon family structure and its logistics. The couples collectively had twenty-one children, and the novel delves into supposing the how-to of procreation and sex--including the participants' imagined mental tricks to creating distance in the mind to cope with complications around physical ability, emotional reactions, and lack of privacy. As with all relationships, things get complicated; here, the stakes are higher and the ability to create space or have one-on-one conversations is impossible. The relationships between the sisters, the brothers, and the four adults evolve and show cracks, are repaired, then threatened again.

As time passes, Sallie becomes increasingly uncomfortable with the family's slave-holding, and matters come to a head when a devastating dynamic within the houshold is revealed. Sallie's desire to set free their slaves and her lack of power are set against the coming of the Civil War in a potent recipe for destruction and change.

The land held the war like a bruise.

Kline puts forward plausible doubts, magnetism, conflict, seeming impossibilities, and outsiders' desire for salacious details in this sympathetic, layered story. She is skilled at building a story within a specific place and time, and the details made this story come alive.

I received a prepublication version of this novel courtesy of NetGalley and Mariner Books.

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Christina Baker Kline is also the author of Exiles, which I liked, Orphan Train (which I really liked), and A Piece of the World (which I loved).