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Chang & Eng (novel)Chang & Eng is a book by American author Darin Strauss, published in 2000. It was a nominee for multiple awards, including the Pen Hemingway, the Barnes & Noble Discover Award, the New York Public Library's Literary Lions Award, and a winner of the American Library Association's Alex Award.

Plot
In 1811 Chang and Eng Bunker are born, twins joined at the chest by a seven-inch-long ligament, in old Siam (Thailand). (This ligament contains a part of their stomach, the only organ they share.) Besides this connecting band, each twin is completely separate from the other: each has a separate personality, separate desires, is a separate individual. Eng, the more shy and bookish twin, narrates their story. When the book opens, Chang & Eng face their last night�Eng awakens, sees that Chang is dead, and knows that he will die tonight, too. Then the book jumps back in time: to their birth: on their parents' houseboat on the Mekong River. Their mother does not tell them they are different, and they assume that all babies are attached.

Soon, the King of Siam condemns them to death�as a double-omen�but he changes his mind upon seeing what a glorious sight they are. He exploits them as freaks. In 1825, an amoral American promoter brings them to America, and this begins their life of celebrity.

The brothers become the world's most famous circus act, get caught up in the Civil War, marry sisters, and father over 20 children.

Eng�a bookish reader of Shakespeare�becomes a leader (or a tool) of the temperance movement and, from birth to death, wishes desperately to be separated. Chang is charming, a heavy drinker, and he is married to the woman that Eng�in secret�loves, too.

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