The Missouri-born twins, Franklyn and Brendan, were raised within a secretive Christian cult called ‘The Family’, running away at 16 and travelling across America on freight trains before settling in Brooklyn. Their art, they explained, came about as they tried to ‘make sense of the world’ they’d been deprived of.
All pretty compelling stuff. Except that, just like a Mills & Boon romance, the story was pure fiction. The pair, Mike Snelle and James Golding, are in fact childhood friends who both share troubled pasts: Liverpool-born Mike had suffered from bouts of severe depression since childhood, while James, who was raised in Cambridge, had battled with anxiety, resulting in heroine addiction and run-ins with the police. The fictional pseudonym, which they maintained for two years, was developed to shield them from the public glare.
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modern extensions
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