A Beautiful Truth
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Told simultaneously from the perspective of humans and chimpanzees, set in a Vermont home and a Florida primate research facility, A Beautiful Truth—at times brutal, other times deeply moving—is about the simple truths that transcend species, the meaning of family, the lure of belonging, and the capacity for survival.
Looee, a chimp raised by a well-meaning and compassionate human couple who cannot conceive a baby of their own, is forever set apart. He's not human, but he is certainly no longer like other chimps. And then one night, after years at the family's Vermont home, their unique family life is changed forever.
At the Girdish Institute, a group of chimpanzees has been studied for decades. There is proof that chimps have memories and solve problems, that they can learn language and need friends. They are political, altruistic, get angry, and forgive. Mr. Ghoul has been there from the beginning, and has grown up in a world of rivals, sex, and unpredictable loss.
Looee and Mr. Ghoul travel distant but parallel paths through childhood, adolescence, and early middle age until Looee, who endures the darker side of Girdish, ends up meeting his kindred spirit long after he moves from Vermont.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
McAdam (Fall) investigates the social dynamics of great apes within the cages of a Florida research institute. Researcher David Kennedy watches over a troupe of chimpanzees, monitoring their interactions, administering social and cognitive tests in order "to defy Noam Chomsky's assertion that humans were unique for being born with language." Weighty themes underlie McAdam's spartan prose depicting the inner lives of research chimps. Craftily blurring species lines, McAdam doesn't limit himself to the chimp colony; alongside scenes at the Girdish Institute runs the story of Vermont couple Walt and Judy Ribke and their adopted chimp, Looee. In the aftermath of uterine surgery, Judy is momentarily buoyed by the arrival of Looee, purchased through a circus handler by Walt to ease his wife's disappointment. As Looee ages, McAdam uses his developmental stages to contrast chimps and humans. With his "mind of a four-year-old boy the coordination and strength of an eighteen-year-old," Looee begins to pose serious problems for the Ribkes, even after construction of a stand-alone house. Inevitably, Looee is sent away to the Girdish Institute and encounters "dogpeople" his word for other chimps for the first time, bringing the novel's two storylines together. Brimming with ambition, McAdam delivers a thought-provoking foray into the not-so-dissimilar minds of our ape relatives.
