The Conjoined

A Novel

By: Jen Sookfong Lee

Narrated by: Sabryn Rock

On a sunny May morning, social worker Jessica Campbell sorts through her mother's belongings after her recent funeral. In the basement she makes a shocking discovery - two dead girls curled into the bottom of her mother's chest freezers. She remembers a pair of foster children who lived with the family in 1988: Casey and Jamie Cheng - troubled, beautiful, and wild teenage sisters from Vancouver's Chinatown. After six weeks they disappeared; social workers, police officers, and Jessica herself assumed they had run away.

As Jessica learns more about Casey, Jamie, and their troubled immigrant Chinese parents, she also unearths dark stories about Donna, whom she had always thought of as the perfect mother. The complicated truths she uncovers force her to take stock of own life.

Moving between present and past, this riveting novel unflinchingly examines the myth of social heroism and traces the often-hidden fractures that divide our diverse cities.

©2016 Jen Sookfong Lee (P)2017 ECW Press

Critic reviews

"The mystery of how the girls died is not the book's main focus, but this captivating novel still moves with the pace of a thriller as it deftly fills in the gaps in the lives of several people, each fractured by horrors of their very own, joined as one in betrayal, trauma, and uncertainty." ( Publishers Weekly)

Disturbing. And not in a fun way.

Introduces a lot of difficult and honestly disturbing material and handles it poorly every time. The main character is insufferable. Narration drones on about the author’s intended lessons from the story, but the truly awful things that happen throughout the story are never actually fully addressed.