The Foursome: Christina Baker Kline (Ticketed Event/Friends Fundraiser)

Join us for an in-person, ticketed event with Christina Baker Kline, sponsored by the Friends of the Avon Library.

Inspired by the true lives of Chang and Eng Bunker, the world-renowned conjoined twins from Siam, and their marriages to sisters Sarah and Adelaide Yates (Kline’s own distant relatives), this novel reimagines one of the strangest and most revealing family stories in American history — and offers a piercingly intimate perspective on an extraordinary chapter of the past.

Set in the Blue Ridge foothills of northwestern North Carolina in the 19th-century, The Foursome begins with Eng and Chang’s arrival, their presence stirring fascination and unease. As the twins build a plantation worked by enslaved labor and begin to introduce themselves to the community, Sarah and her sister Adelaide find themselves drawn into the orbit of these enigmatic men. What follows is an intimate and emotionally charged exploration of their unconventional marriages, as Sarah and Adelaide navigate the complexities of intimacy, judgment, and their own evolving desires.

Christina Baker Kline is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of ten novels, including Orphan Train, The Exiles, Please Don’t Lie (co-authored with Anne Burt), and the forthcoming The Foursome (May 2026), Christina Baker Kline is published in more than 40 countries. Her novels have received the New England Prize for Fiction, the Maine Literary Award, and a Barnes & Noble Discover Award, among other prizes, and have been chosen by hundreds of communities, universities, and schools as “One Book, One Read” selections. Her essays, articles, and reviews have appeared in publications such as The New York Times and The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, and The San Francisco Chronicle.