Overview

In the early 1960s, the head of a prominent New York City Child Development Center and a psychiatrist from Columbia University launched a study designed to track the development of twins and triplets given up for adoption and raised by different families. The controversial and disturbing catch? None of the adoptive parents had been told that they were raising a twin--the study's investigators insisted that the separation be kept secret. Here, Nancy Segal reveals the inside stories of the agency that separated the twins, and the collaborating psychiatrists who, along with their cadre of colleagues, observed the twins until they turned twelve. Interviews with colleagues, friends, and family members of the agency's psychiatric consultant and the study's principal investigator, as well as a former agency administrator, research assistants, journalists, ethicists, attorneys, and--most importantly--the twins and their families who were unwitting participants in this controversial study, are riveting. Through records, letters, and other documents, Segal further discloses the investigators' attempts to engage other agencies in separating twins, their efforts to avoid media exposure, their worries over informed consent issues in the 1970s, and the steps taken toward avoiding lawsuits while hoping to enjoy the fruits of publication.

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Nancy L. Segal is professor of psychology at California State University, Fullerton, and director of the Twin Studies Center. She has authored over 250 scientific articles and six books on twins and twin development-a recent survey placed her among the top 2% of well-cited scientists worldwide. Segal's 2012 book, Born Together-Reared Apart: The Landmark Minnesota Twin Study, won the 2013 William James Book Award from the American Psychological Association. Her other books include Twin Mythconceptions: False Beliefs, Fables and Facts About Twins, Someone Else's Twin: The True Story of Babies Switched at Birth, Indivisible by Two: Lives of Extraordinary Twins, and Entwined Lives: Twins and What They Tell Us About Human Behavior. Her 2018 book Accidental Brothers follows the incredible life histories of two sets of identical male twins in Colombia who were inadvertently switched at birth. Segal has appeared on the Today Show, CBS This Morning, Good Morning America, and The Oprah Winfrey Show, and been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Atlantic Monthly. She has also served as a consultant and expert witness for the media, the law, and the arts. Born in Boston and raised in New York City, she lives in Southern California. Margaret Strom, a New York-trained actress, graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and holds both BA and MA degrees in theater, as well as an MS degree in educational administration and supervision. She has narrated more than five hundred books for the Library of Congress, and is the voice of business, private, nonprofit, medical, and government industrials and commercials.

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