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Sarah and Adelaide Yates, daughters of a once-prominent local family brought low by scandal, are drawn into their orbit. Bold, beautiful Addie sees in the twins’ fame a chance to reclaim her future. Sallie, quiet and observant, isn’t so sure. When the twins’ lives become entangled with theirs, they must navigate loyalty, longing, and identity in a world where everything—including race, class, and gender—is rigidly defined.
Spanning five decades and unfolding against the backdrop of a fractured nation hurtling toward war, The Foursome is both intimate and epic: a story of love and constraint, identity and reinvention. With piercing insight and emotional precision, Kline brings to life a forgotten chapter of American history and the complex, boundary-defying marriages at its center.
Early Praise
“Christina Baker Kline has made a rare and courageous marvel in The Foursome. She has taken the story of the famous 19th century Siamese twins Chang and Eng Bunker, and their wives the Yates sisters, and transformed this often sensationalized slice of history into a deeply felt, meticulously observed exploration of the mystery of marriage and family that portrays the ways in which good-hearted people can both reflect the prejudices of their era and question them in a community beset by a brutal civil war. I have loved all Kline’s books; this beautiful, thought-provoking novel is her best yet. ”
–Alice Elliott Dark, author of Fellowship Point
“When you start The Foursome, Christina Baker Kline’s magnificent new novel about the two sisters who married conjoined twins Chang and Eng, it feels, at first, like you’re stepping into a Diane Arbus photograph. But Kline, a master of alchemy, takes her reader on a journey full of awakenings. This is a story that goes deeply into the lives of two nineteenth-century Southern women, revealing the contradictions at the heart of all relationships — and of America itself. This book is both a feat of the imagination and a radical treatise on empathy.”
–Caitlin Shetterly, author of Pete & Alice in Maine
