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One of Us
A playfully macabre and utterly thrilling tale about orphaned twins on the run from their murderous uncle who find refuge in a bizarre traveling carnival, from master of literary horror Dan Chaon
It’s 1915 and the world is transforming, but for thirteen-year-old Bolt and Eleanor—twins so close they can literally read each other’s minds—life is falling apart. When their mother dies, they are forced to leave home under the care of a vicious con man who claims to be their long-lost uncle Charlie, the only kin they have left. During a late-night poker game, when one of his rages ends in murder, they decide to flee.
Salvation arrives in the form of Mr. Jengling, founder of the Emporium of Wonders and father to its many members. He adopts Bolt and Eleanor, who travel by train across the vast, sometimes brutal American frontier with their new family, watching as the exhibitions spark amazement wherever they go. There’s Minnie, the three-legged lady, and Dr. Chui, who stands over seven feet tall; Thistle Britches, the clown with no nose, and Rosalie, who can foretell the death of anyone she meets.
After a lifetime of having only each other, Eleanor and Bolt are finally part of something bigger. But as Bolt falls in deeper with their new clan, he finds Eleanor pulling further away from him. And when Uncle Charlie picks up their trail, the twins find themselves facing a peril as strange as it is terrifying, one which will forever alter the trajectory of their lives. An ode to the misfits and the marginalized, One of Us is a riotous and singularly creepy celebration of the strange and the spectacular and of family in its many forms.
These book club questions are from the publisher, Henry Holt & Co.
Book club questions for One of Us by Dan Chaon
Use these discussion questions to guide your next book club meeting.
What do you think is the central driving force behind Uncle Charlie’s relentless pursuit of the twins? What makes him tick, in your opinion?
What are some of the similarities you noticed between the America of 1915 and the America of today?
What do you make of Jengling’s philosophy and attitude toward his “family?” Is he a utopianist? A rescuer? A collector? An exploiter?
What happens to Bolt at the end? What do you make of his disappearance?
Have you ever used a Ouija Board or attended a séance? Why is this concept of an afterlife so persistently attractive? If you could summon a deceased person for a conversation, who would you call upon?
“It does grow very tiring, to be made use of,” says Rosalie near the end of the novel. Is there a difference between “being useful” and “being made use of?” And if so, are there characters who are “useful,” rather than “being made use of?”
Team Bolt or Team Eleanor? Which of the twins did you feel closest to? Did this change over the course of the novel?
Which of the carnival’s denizens would you have liked to spend more time with? Imagine an alternate novel that follows their adventures.
The Loving Cup ceremony is a double-edged sword for Eleanor, as she’s embraced by a community she doesn’t necessarily want to identify with. Has this ever happened to you, when you found yourself grouped in with folks you’d rather not be associated with?
The concept of Family is important to the characters in the novel. From the close sibling bond the twins share, to the various forms of adoption—the Orphan Train, the Jengling Carnival contracts—to Uncle Charlie’s mad parodies of happy homelife, all of the people in the book are actively engaged in inventing their own dream of the familial. Which ways of thinking were most appealing to you? How important is a blood bond?
One of Us Book Club Questions PDF
Click here for a printable PDF of the One of Us discussion questions
“Only in Dan Chaon's hands does a rollicking tale of a traveling sideshow carnival, serial killer, and psychic orphaned twins become a complex, soaring elegy for an America that never was and never will be. One of Us is a brilliant novel and a beating heart in the darkness.” —Paul Tremblay, New York Times bestselling author of Horror Movie and A Head Full of Ghosts
“One of Us is an immersive, thrilling, and wonderfully twisted funhouse mirror of a novel. Dan Chaon builds a reality just familiar enough to lure you in—then distorts it in the most unsettling, exhilarating ways. I couldn’t look away.” —Danielle Trussoni, New York Times bestselling author of The Puzzle Box
“I’ve run off to join the circus, Ma! It’s Dan Chaon’s. And I don’t ever want to leave." —Stephen Graham Jones, New York Times bestselling author of The Buffalo Hunter Hunter
"Chaon dazzles with his vision of family, strangeness, and the tension between care and exploitation. This captivating adventure is not to be missed." —Publishers Weekly (starred)
"Chaon has also delivered a sharp thriller … Set mainly in 1915, the novel captures a vanished vaudeville world that Chaon resurrects in thoughtful detail, down to the era’s slang (ziggety, conflustered, woofits). But in its latter chapters, the novel is also powerfully otherworldly, deliberately warping assumptions about life, death, and the nature of souls…. A magic trick: A novel that’s both deeply unsettling and tenderhearted." —Kirkus (starred)