The cultural fantasy of twins imagines them as physically and behaviorally identical. Media portrayals consistently reproduce the spectacle of twins who share an insular closeness and perform a supposed alikeness—standing side by side, speaking and acting in unison.

Treating twinship as a cultural phenomenon, this first comprehensive study of twins in American literature and popular culture examines their historical narrative—embedded within discourses of aberrance, experimentation and eugenics—and how it has shaped their public and personal representations in the 20th and 21st centuries.