by Terri Schlichenmeyer

VIOLET AND DAISY: THE STORY OF VAUDEVILLE'S FAMOUS CONJOINED TWINS

SARAH MILLER

� 2021 Schwartz & Wade Books

$17.99 / $23.99 Canada

310 pages

Kate Skinner had plenty of reason to scream. She'd been in labor for hours, and the pain was excruciating. The midwife thought the baby was stuck, until she realized there were two babies. And then, with "a great deal of unusual twisting and turning," twins were born — and Kate screamed again.

What a pair! Her newborn daughters were attached at the base of their little spines: the girls shared a rectum, tailbone, and anus, along with some muscles and skin but they were normal children otherwise.

Kate didn't know that, though, and she refused to care for her babies, and so the midwife, Mary Hilton, took them in and gave them her surname. Outwardly, Hilton was a kindly woman who loved these English girls, named Violet and Daisy, but the truth, says author Sarah Miller in the new biography aptly titled Violet and Daisy, was that she abused them and put them on display for money. Later, Hilton's son-in-law and daughter did the same, bouncing the growing girls from continent and manager to the next place and sideshow, ultimately landing in America.

Through the years, the Hilton sisters made their foster family and various managers they hired very wealthy, but in a then-scandalous, nationally followed court case when they were young adults, they learned that the money was largely gone.

To 21st-century eyes, what happens in Violet and Daisy may seem sadly, tabloidishly familiar. But keep reading: there's more to this true story, and it's quite compelling.

Miller captures readers' interests by setting the stage at the beginning of her book, explaining why the sisters' mother was so aghast at their birth, and showing the ease that Mary Hilton enjoyed by taking advantage of the entire situation for years. To know how and why both things occurred is a lesson in cultural history.

Miller's account of the court case comes roughly in the middle of this book, and here it's likewise beneficial if you can see the wider picture. America wasn't very enlightened throughout most of Violet's and Daisy's lifetimes, as evidenced by the details of their lives and the touchy legalities of the normal existence they craved. Medicine was still, by modern standards, rather crude.

And yet, the court judgment and the Hiltons' subsequently successful career demonstrate a nation hurtling through many advances that could only portend good.

But not entirely: how Daisy's and Violet's lives take a turn, and how they end, is the perfectly tragic period at the end of a heartbreaking sentence.

You might find this book in the YA section, but don't let that deter you: it's one you'll want to savor. Violet and Daisy and a bookmark: what a pair!



VIOLET AND DAISY: THE STORY OF VAUDEVILLE'S FAMOUS CONJOINED TWINS

SARAH MILLER

� 2021 Schwartz & Wade Books

$17.99 / $23.99 Canada

310 pages

Kate Skinner had plenty of reason to scream. She'd been in labor for hours, and the pain was excruciating. The midwife thought the baby was stuck, until she realized there were two babies. And then, with "a great deal of unusual twisting and turning," twins were born — and Kate screamed again.

What a pair! Her newborn daughters were attached at the base of their little spines: the girls shared a rectum, tailbone, and anus, along with some muscles and skin but they were normal children otherwise.

Kate didn't know that, though, and she refused to care for her babies, and so the midwife, Mary Hilton, took them in and gave them her surname. Outwardly, Hilton was a kindly woman who loved these English girls, named Violet and Daisy, but the truth, says author Sarah Miller in the new biography aptly titled Violet and Daisy, was that she abused them and put them on display for money. Later, Hilton's son-in-law and daughter did the same, bouncing the growing girls from continent and manager to the next place and sideshow, ultimately landing in America.

Through the years, the Hilton sisters made their foster family and various managers they hired very wealthy, but in a then-scandalous, nationally followed court case when they were young adults, they learned that the money was largely gone.

To 21st-century eyes, what happens in Violet and Daisy may seem sadly, tabloidishly familiar. But keep reading: there's more to this true story, and it's quite compelling.

Miller captures readers' interests by setting the stage at the beginning of her book, explaining why the sisters' mother was so aghast at their birth, and showing the ease that Mary Hilton enjoyed by taking advantage of the entire situation for years. To know how and why both things occurred is a lesson in cultural history.

Miller's account of the court case comes roughly in the middle of this book, and here it's likewise beneficial if you can see the wider picture. America wasn't very enlightened throughout most of Violet's and Daisy's lifetimes, as evidenced by the details of their lives and the touchy legalities of the normal existence they craved. Medicine was still, by modern standards, rather crude.

And yet, the court judgment and the Hiltons' subsequently successful career demonstrate a nation hurtling through many advances that could only portend good.

But not entirely: how Daisy's and Violet's lives take a turn, and how they end, is the perfectly tragic period at the end of a heartbreaking sentence.

You might find this book in the YA section, but don't let that deter you: it's one you'll want to savor. Violet and Daisy and a bookmark: what a pair!