Showing results by author "Amy Wallace" in All Categories

William Sidis, 1897-1944, was the world's greatest child prodigy. His IQ was an estiamted 50 to 100 points higher than Einstein's, the highest ever recorded or estimated. His father, a pioneer in the field of abnormal psychology, believed that he and his wife could create a genius in the cradle. They hung alphabet blocks over the baby's crib-and within six months little Billy was speaking. At 18 months he was reading The New York Times; at three, Homer in the original Greek. At six he spoke at least seven languages.

They came into the world as one - inseparably tied together at their chests - yet they were two. They became world celebrities, American citizens, married two native-born Southern sisters, and between them fathered 21 children, while acquiring respectable status as landowners, famers, slave owners, and pillars of their local community. "They" were the famous, the first, the original Siamese Twins, Chang and Eng.

The future of Lily van Velsen, San Francisco pearl "doctor" gemologist, looks assured, given her recent engagement to her goodnatured colleague Alan Purdue. But once she begins reading the diaries that recount many of her ancestors' illicit romances and their relationships with demon lovers, she is driven toward a dark destiny of her own, in the form of an affair with artist Johnny Penthe and a yearning for the opium that can calm her spirit.