Violet and Daisy: The Story of Vaudeville's Famous Conjoined Twins. Sarah Miller. 2021. [April] 320 pages. [Source: Review copy]
First sentence: Of course their mother screamed when they were born. She screamed so loudly and for so long on February 5, 1908, the neighbors pounded on the wall to command her to stop. But twenty-one-year-old Kate Skinner could not help but scream. After fourteen hours of unrelenting pain, her baby had not come. It had not even seemed to budge. The midwife, Mary Hilton, began to fear that the unborn infant had died. She ran downstairs and out of the house to call for the doctor.
Premise/plot: Violet and Daisy is nonfiction biography. It is listed as being YA Nonfiction, but honestly I can see adults reading it too. So Violet and Daisy were conjoined twins who--for better or worse, mainly for worse I imagine--lived life in the spotlight from an incredibly young age. Think toddlers. Born in 1908, the two lived at a time when it was all but impossible for 'freaks' not to be exploited or gawked at. I use the word freaks not because I genuinely believe they were freaks of nature and 'monstrous' but that is how they were perceived at the time by many.
Miller's biography chronicles their lives. It's not an easy task but a layered one full of puzzles and mysteries. You see, Violet and Daisy were "raised" (not nurtured by any stretch) by people who told flim flams as often as they breathed in and out. In other words, from an extremely young age, the two learned that truth was flexible and ever-changing. It wasn't so much what is actually-actually-actually true but what can bring in the most publicity and thus the most money. The "truth" being sold (or peddled) depended entirely on the audience and the day.
Piecing together their lives a century later requires much discernment and some intuition.
My thoughts: I found it compelling and fascinating. Also bleak--very bleak. Sarah Miller seems to be drawn to stories that are darker in nature, OR incredibly sad, or infuriating. Perhaps a bit of all three. Her nonfiction works include: The Borden Murders: Lizzie Borden and the Trial of the Century, The Miracle and Tragedy of the Dionne Quintuplets, and Violet and Daisy: The Story of Vaudeville's Famous Conjoined Twins. I think she treats all her subjects with dignity--even though especially with the last two books the subjects were often exploited or taken advantage of. Miller is great at capturing the humanity of her subjects. And to be fair, that means the good, the bad, and the ugly. (Not literally ugly).
It's a bleak read, I won't lie. There were highs, for sure, moments when the two seemed to be actually truly authentically happy to be living their lives just as they wanted on their own terms. But mostly, this is a bittersweet story of two misunderstood often exploited souls who were seen as money-making tools.
It's sad in many ways. But no matter how I emotionally react to Miller's story, I found it engaging.
© 2021 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews
No comments:
Post a Comment