From the author of The Miracle & Tragedy of the Dionne Quintuplets
and The Borden Murders comes the absorbing and compulsively readable
story of Violet and Daisy Hilton, conjoined twins who were the sensation
of the US sideshow circuits in the 1920s and 1930s.
On February 5, 1908, Kate Skinner, a 21-year-old unmarried barmaid in
Brighton, England, gave birth to twin girls. They each had ten fingers
and ten toes, but were joined back to back at the base of the spine.
Freaks, monsters--that's what they were called. Mary Hilton, Kate's
employer and midwife, adopted Violet and Daisy and promptly began
displaying the babies as Brighton's United Twins. Exhibitions at street
fairs, carnivals, and wax museums across England and Scotland followed.
At 8 years old, the girls came to the United States, eventually becoming
the stars of sideshow, vaudeville, and burlesque circuits in the 1920s
and 1930s. In a story loaded with questions about identity and
exploitation, Sarah Miller delivers a completely compelling, empathetic
portrait of two sisters whose bonds were so sacred that nothing -- not
even death-- would compel Violet and Daisy to break them.