The Bunker Family Reunion by Darin Strauss

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One of the almost always nice things about book touring (along with the free hotel rooms and the chance to see parts of the country you never have before) is meeting people who have read your work -- although it can very rarely join the ranks of the tough things about book tour (flying everyday, being away from your family, the occasional empty event). It reminds you that writing isn't just something you do for yourself in your underwear. It's thrilling to realize that people actually read your stuff, and come out to tell you about what they thought of it. (Which is why it's very rarely tough: sometimes people schlep all the way to the book store to tell you they don't like your work. Who would do this? Would you?)

The most memorable event I've ever done was when I went to speak at the Bunker Family Reunion -- the gathering of people who descended from Chang & Eng Bunker -- the real-life twins who were the basis for my first novel.

The conjoined twins Eng and Chang Bunker fathered 21 children and now have 1,800 descendants - and every July many of them come together in Mt. Airy, NC., where the twins settled after escaping certain death in Siam. This year I've been invited, by way of the tabloids. ("Tell that Darin Strauss to come," one of Eng's great-grandsons said to a newspaper reporter who'd written a profile of me.)

After making sure the invitation is legitimate, I swerved my book tour South to include Mt. Airy - which is the village that TV's Mayberry was based on - to visit a get-together of people I don't know, understanding I'd probably be disliked.

Before the reunion, as I finish up a signing in Durham, a second descendant came up to me. His name was Fred Bunker. "Just explain to us it's fiction and not biography, and maybe it won't be so bad if you come," Fred said. "Nearly all of us are hillbillies about that question of fiction versus non."

This Fred Bunker was nine-tenths WASP, but his face was an echo of Eng's. Maybe you've seen the photo of the Siamese twins in the Guinness Book: the brothers are caught standing arms over each other's shoulders, like two rummies trying to support each other. Eng is the one whose eyes give you the idea that he knows you'll be gawking at his picture a hundred-and-thirty years after his death. His eyes say: "I know-it's dreadful, isn't it?"

*
The day of the reunion the famed Carolina breeze was asleep on the job. And by noon, the heat was a string of firecrackers going off inches from my ear.

I hadn't known what goes down at Southern reunions (my people call them seders), so I'd decided to bring some fried chicken along. On line at the local Long John Silver's, in a moment of sweaty optimism, I'd imagined that maybe people would applaud as I entered the meeting hall, every descendant gracious and affectionate, fans of my book. I had it wrong-but not completely. More in a minute.

Inside I meet Tanya, Eng's great-granddaughter, a fine-looking local woman of upmarket blouse and efficient hair. "It's not your writing I have a problem with, Mr. Strauss." Her smile is a show of nothing more genial than the muscles of her cheeks. "It's your ethics I don't like." She holds a copy of my book between two fingers as if it's gone to rot.

What could I say that wouldn't come off as a base rhetorical overstatement? That I "changed the facts because I wanted to follow the voluntary hallucination that is artistic creation"? Doesn't that sound like B.S. to you, too?

I should explain that Chang and Eng, while based on true characters, is purely fiction. It's presented as a meditation on what the brothers' truth might have been - not least because the facts of their biography were lost to sideshow embellishment even while they lived. Still, we do know: Chang and Eng came to America and great celebrity, sustained a coupled life as farmers during the Civil War, married Southern belle sisters, and owned slaves. This is Bunker family history. And as a novelist I discarded and finessed and invented certain details of this history. Thoughts, feelings, conversation - and, I hope, the way this all illuminates realities of our time - that is what a novelist (or, this novelist) added to the historical material. I tried, in other words, to make their story more resonant. And apparently, my having done so made some of their people angry.

Another descendant was a tall Carolinian named Woody Haynes. "I've seen you written up in magazines, I know all about you," he said. He thinks my name is "Daris." He said, "I'm a descendant of Chang, the one you said was dim-witted in your book."

"I'm sorry you felt that I-" Even as my mouth releases some stale explanation, I'm thinking: Maybe I shouldn't have come? A reporter from the Atlanta Journal - Jill - sidled up beside me, scribbling notes.

Hundreds of people had shown up, eyeing the jerk who's rejiggered their family secret into a best-seller.

I carried my box of Long John Silver fired chicken to the mammoth table where people have put their food. I arranged my offering among the legion of china plates of home-cooked chicken - the air smells like Kentucky Fried drippings - when a woman taps me on the shoulder. "Mr. Strauss, you brought some lunch for us," she said.

"Yes, I did," I said, smiling. (Wanting to make the best impression on these people, despite the heat I'd worn a button down shirt and a fairly prim pair of pants. But I forgot to pack a belt, and so now I was conscious of my trousers drooping.)

"Well," she says, "I'll bet you didn't even cook the chicken yourself." Then she walked off. What I wanted to say is: Guess what, my room in the Hampton Inn doesn't come with a kitchen. Or: Actually, I did cook it - my name is Long John Silver, do you like the box I made?

"No, ma'am, I guess I didn't." (I said this to her departing back.)

After about an hour, I was asked to stand before a microphone and address everyone. I wanted to tell them I hope I've done their plucky forefathers justice, and that the best way I knew to portray brave Chang and erudite Eng's story was with the immediacy and vitality of fiction - that's why I've written a novel and not a biography. That Art is omnipresent and life is uncertain, or something.

"Uh, hi, everyone," I said.

Standing in the crowd was Fred Bunker, the guy I'd met at my Durham reading. A few days earlier, he'd told me that his sister had once visited Thailand. People in Bangkok had thought that all the Bunkers must be rich, descended as they were from such celebrated twins. "But the thing is," Fred had told me, "most of us are not rich at all."

"Thank you very much for having me." I was speaking into the microphone, which shocked my lips. My shirt stuck to my sweaty chest like papier mâchè. "I just want to thank your family and your wonderful ancestors." I couldn't think of anything else to add. "And for your kindness for inviting me here. Thank you," I said. And for good measure: "Thank you." I couldn't stop myself: "Thanks."

As I sat down, a woman named Loraine Haynes touched my sleeve and shows a toothy grin. "It's really great that you came, Darin." And it was all over her gentle eyes that she meant it - and it was as if I'd been pulled up out of a hundred feet of ocean into a different world. At once people are coming up to shake my hand and pat me on the back. I'm not sure what has happened. My own smile is unsteady, the face of someone trying to keep friends he doesn't deserve. Tanya, the woman who'd questioned my ethics, invites me back for the "Mayberry Days" festival that celebrates Andy Griffith each year. My earlier flash of optimism hadn't been far off-base. The descendants are kind people. I guess they simply want to make sure I've understood and respected my obligation to their family. With one awkward speech I've convinced them that I have. But have I really?

It's an odd thing making a living mining other people's stories. The differences between biography and novel are esoteric. And while I hold those differences as precious, a book is merely a book; a family history is sacred. It's that distinction I came come to North Carolina to honor.

At the end of the reunion the entire family proceeded out into the muggy sunshine, but not before most of them stopped to find "the writer." They thanked me -- when I felt I should be the one thanking them. Woody Haynes puts his hand on my arm- with his slick black hair and thick glasses he suggests an almost Asian, Cinderella-era Jerry Lewis.

"Great book," Woody said. "You're part of our family now, Darin."

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