Inseparable

The Original Siamese Twins and Their Rendezvous with American History

De: Yunte Huang

Narrado por: P.J. Ochlan

Nearly a decade after his triumphant Charlie Chan biography, Yunte Huang returns with this long-awaited portrait of Chang and Eng Bunker (1811-1874), twins conjoined at the sternum by a band of cartilage and a fused liver, who were "discovered" in Siam by a British merchant in 1824. Bringing an Asian American perspective to this almost implausible story, Huang depicts the twins, arriving in Boston in 1829, first as museum exhibits but later as financially savvy showmen who gained their freedom and traveled the backroads of rural America to bring "entertainment" to the Jacksonian mobs.

Their rise from subhuman, freak-show celebrities to rich southern gentry; their marriage to two white sisters, resulting in 21 children; and their owning of slaves, is not just another sensational biography but a Hawthorne-like excavation of America's historical penchant for finding feast in the abnormal, for tyrannizing the "other"-a tradition that, as Huang reveals, becomes inseparable from American history itself.

©2018 Yunte Huang (P)2018 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

A great history and story.

Mr.Yunte has done it again. I am probably the absolute wrong person to do a review on this book.
I am a white American so let me say this, Mr.Yunte has me hooked on his perspective of Chinese history in America. He puts the not just a biography but a slice of what was going on at that time.
Chang and Ang there story was aboslutly amazing!
In my opinion they are the American Dream. Born poor disabled in China, sold into basicly slavery, rose to superstar status, learned to read and write, got to become the 2nd and 3rd Chinese immigrants to be U.S citizens, owned land, married, had LOTS of kids and lived a relativly good life.
By God if that aint the American dream then I don't know what is.
The same goes for Mr.Yunte. He is the American sucess story too, and my personal hero, he is worthy for any Chinese to look up to or any American to look up to as a example of sucess.
I would suggest his Charlie Chan book as a excellent listen(minus the dry narrator) then this book. Hell listen to all of them.

Disappointing

Interesting but only about 20% of the book is about Chang and Eng and their life.

What an interesting book with lots of American history!

I enjoyed listening to this book a lot. It has tons of American history besides the twins’ stories. Before I began the book, I thought of the twins strange and a bit scary. After I finished the book, the two appeared to be normal, just like you and I. They were extraordinary though given what they had to face and endure.