Misfits

I have liked many of Baker Kline’s novels, and I am so glad this latest is no exception. The story starts in the 1840s, in Wilkes County, North Carolina. Our protagonist, Sarah – Sallie – is a typical southern belle, though she is not as beautiful and confident – and pushy! – as her younger sister, Adelaide. In fact, Sarah tends to towards the innocent and naïve, and was seduced young. Although she miscarried the baby, the taint stuck, and she was not in high demand by eligible bachelors. Moreover, her own parents had some skeletons of their own in their closets.

Enter the Bunker brothers, Siamese twins, Chang and Eng. Joined just below the ribs with cartilage, and who cannot be separated surgically without risking death to one or both. But these Siamese twins have learnt to be Southern gentleman after an unlikely start to their lives. Sold by their mother in Thailand to be shown around the world as freaks or monsters, they saved up and became men of wealth, owning property and slaves.

“They were hale and agile, needing neither cane nor chair. They moved in harmony, ran with practiced ease, swam and hunted and fished like any other men” (p8)

They are dapper, handsome, well dressed, well spoken – they apparently learnt to speak English on their passage from Thailand – they are also intelligent and articulate. They dance well, they are tolerated if not accepted into the community where they have settled.

“Eng and Chang were the first men of Asiatic origin to become naturalized citizens in North Carolina. Federal law barred nonwhite immigrants from citizenship, but the brothers had slipped through a legal hap: the state’s statute, written with only free Negroes and Indians in mind, simply hadn’t accounted for anyone from the East. The only debate was how many votes the Bunker twins should be entitled to” (p23).

Their personhood is always contested, socially of course, but legally too. As Eng wrote about once, if Chang is convicted of murder and sentenced to prison, should he be wrongfully incarcerated too?

“If one paid his train fare and the other did not, must both be barred from boarding” (p8).

Adelaide and Sarah marry these brothers, and it is a fascinating tale Baker Kline unfolds of how they adjust to living with husbands who are cojoined physically, and forever, their “four-cornered marriage” (p287). Conjugal relations are managed – at first with each wife staying in the husbands’ bed 3 nights a week each. The twins have learnt to just be the silent partner when they need to be.

Then when several children are born, Sallie feels the need of her own household, so a new farmstead is bought for Adelaide, but it is 40 miles away, so about 6-8 hours journeytime. The twins travels between their homes, 3 days a week in each home, strictly bound by this schedule, irrespective of weather and emergencies. Baker Kline beautifully captures the struggles of the foursome, who each have to adjust to not just a new spouse, but having to always conduct their marriage with a 3rd party present, no privacy ever. Baker Kline also details how the twins do get frustrated with each other, but there is no walking out to cool down, or taking time out – they have to remained always together, and where one goes, the other just has to follow, it is not a choice. The brothers get on well for most part, but they are dissimilar in personalities and even opinions, and fights do happen.

The many children born to this foursome are cousins twice over. They later on find out that society points fingers at them, just as it does at their mothers too, however respectable their families are, and however many acres and slaves their fathers own The story is also told against the background of rising abolition, and of Sallie’s discomfort with slave owning although she has been waited on by slaves all her life. She is fully aware her own life of ease is built on the backs of the suffering of others, especially Grace. She does little to help – her own personal slave, Grace, carries such a heavy burden and is used to breed more slaves, and Grace’s mother sold away when Sallie’s parents die, and Sallie does precious little to protect Grace or to address this, or even to petition for Grace’s freedom. She tries once, telling Eng,

“You of all people know what it’s like to be treated as property” (p255)

and is told a harsh truth by Chang,

“Men don’t break their chains just to walk free,” Chang said, “They break them to wield them” (p255).

Just before war breaks out, Eng and Chang are rich men, owning 16 slaves and 300 acres and 11 slaves and 550 acres respectively. So apparently, they are counted as separate individuals. Strangely even after Adelaide and Sallie’s parents die and their lands and slaves are sold off, there seem to be no money for the daughters. And they own nothing, although their husbands are amongst the richest men in Mount Airy County. The war of course changes everything. Their fortunes are entirely tied to that of the Confederate Army’s. The Southern states are reduced to starvation. The Bunker family, like all others, fall on hard times. Eng and Chang have to tour the world again, selling their bodies on display.

This is a beautifully written novel, fascinating in its subject matter, very sensitive in its handling, particularly of issues of exclusion and identity. There is compassion in how Sallie understands her husband’s casual cruelty, knowing some of what he himself had suffered. Strangely, there is not enough compassion for her to do right by her slaves, even though she knows it is wrong to have slaves, and that Grace for example, carries an unfair burden.

The author tells us that the story was inspired from her real life ancestors, but while Eng and Chang’s lives are well chronicled, the lives of their wives is entirely a matter for imagination. She decided to tell this story from their point of view, and I must say, it is well imagined, and beautifully written. Baker Kline, in so many of her novels, has such a feeling for the underdog, the outcast, the vulnerable, the misfits of society. I have enjoyed many of her novels and look forward to more.   

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