Amanda Palmer said, “Funny, that.”

I HAVE BEEN backstage at an Evelyn Evelyn concert. It starts out with Amanda Palmer and Jason Webley, who are two very different people.

Then they strip down. Jason shaves and puts on a bra. They make up. They put on black wigs and they clamber into a striped costume which has room for both of them. They pull it up. They put it on.

Evelyn Evelyn whisper to each other. The left-hand Evelyn seems slightly more masculine than the right-hand Evelyn. They do not meet your eyes. They are a unit. You watch them as they move, like one person. They are reluctant to walk out onto the stage.

They play two-handed piano. One of the Neville twins plays the right hand, the other plays the left hand. The same with accordion, ukulele, guitar. They play two kazoos, for they have two mouths. Only one twin needs play the snare drum and cymbals.

They sing. They relate to each other in a way they do not relate to the audience.

Amanda Palmer sings to, and talks to, and cares about, and interacts with, her audience. Jason Webley is famous for getting his audiences magically drunk without even using alcohol.

The twins exist only for each other—they play to each other, disagree, make up, care for each other, and whisper, always whisper.

They are aware of the audience. They respond to applause. But they are not on that stage for us.

AND PEOPLE ASK, as I once asked, whether Amanda Palmer and Jason Webley are actually Evelyn Evelyn.

And they are not. They are something other, Eva and Lynn Neville, something that exists in a make-believe space inhabited by puppets and dreams. They are no more Jason and Amanda than the Haitian Loa, Baron Samedi, Mistress Erzulie and the rest, are really the horses that they ride. No more than Father Christmas was only ever your dad.

CYNTHIA VON BUHLER here illustrates the life of the twins.

She brings delicacy and charm to a story that contains tragedy and darkness. Her illustrations have all the simplicity of great children’s illustrations, but tell a story that could only exist because adults are foolish and confused and sometimes evil. She lets the Neville sisters and their story move beyond Amanda and Jason and their music and out into the world.

Their story is hard and strange, and they have had more than their share of bad luck and tragedy. But then, the same can be said of most of us. It is one of the secrets of being human. It’s not the pain that you suffer: it’s how you take the pain and move on. In the case of the Neville sisters, they make art. And so do Amanda Palmer and Jason Webley, and so does Cynthia von Buhler.

This is the secret of Evelyn Evelyn. You can be them too. Start reading, and you will see through their eyes, and learn to whisper secrets to yourself in the dark.