Chapters (42)

I did a lot of research for this book. The initial idea came from reading an article about Daisy and Violet Hilton and wondering what it would be like to be connected to someone every minute of every day, and how strange it would be if you found out your literal other half had kept something from you. Alice Domurat Dreger’s book One of Us: Conjoined Twins and the Future of Normal really impacted the twins’ view of being conjoined, their relationship to each other, and how they were perceived by the outside world, both within the Hearth and San Francisco. I was also inspired by Lori Lansens’s work of fiction The Girls. I watched a lot of documentaries and interviews with conjoined twins: The Twins Who Share a Body, Abby & Brittany, Two Hearts, Bound by Flesh, The Twins Who Share a Brain, and more. I asked a few twins about their relationships and also observed my twin nephews, Ruben and Kade. For cults, Last Days by Adam Nevill and Whit by Iain Banks were some fictional influences, as was the film Martha Marcy May Marlene, and documentaries such as Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple, Jesus Camp, and Cults: Dangerous Devotion gave me some invaluable insights. I also read numerous articles on various cults. I read Mapping the Mind by Rita Carter as a good resource on neuroscience, and I looked at the History Channel’s City of the Future’s entries for San Francisco, which inspired some aspects of my near-future city. I have a fuller list of resources on my website, if you’d like to learn more.

As ever, thank you to the readers who picked up the book and spent some time with Taema and Tila. You’re the reason I can keep doing this.