God's Fool

A haunting and beautiful debut novel from a dazzlingly original new voice.

Born attached at the chest, Chang and Eng were considered a marvel, an omen, a prophecy, an act of God. To the West, they were freaks, to the East they were neither evidence of God's glory or proof of his wrath. In this powerful novel, Mark Slouka brilliantly captures their inner lives and powerfully recounts their amazing story.

As children they were presented to the Thai Royal Court as a curiosity, then as men they set sail for Europe. There they entertained kings and counsellors in salons and drawing rooms, from Brussels to Pamplona. Inevitably the culture that lifted them cast them down. Penniless, they moved from flophouse to flophouse until they were discovered by the inimitable Phineas T Barnum.

Shipped off to the United States with dwarves and two-headed calves, midgets and twelve-fingered flute players, they toured the country before settling as slave owners in North Carolina. In a sort of pastoral idyll, Chang and Eng married a pair of sisters and fathered twenty children, before the spectre of the Civil War threatened their peace and their way of life.

'God's Fool' is an astonishing, powerful and beautiful novel that vibrantly captures both a changing world and a unique relationship. Sweeping and intimate, ambitious and unusual, Mark Slouka's debut novel is a dazzling achievement.