A Beautiful Truth

June 24, 2013
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. Agent: Doug Stewart, Sterling Lord Literistic.

July 1, 2013
Canadian novelist McAdam's third book (Fall, 2009, etc.) begins with Walt and Judy, a loving, childless Vermont couple beset by the feeling that they don't have sufficient outlets for the love they have to give. One day in 1972, Walt comes across an article in Life about chimpanzees conversant in sign language, and soon he's gone off to a traveling circus in search of a cross-species surrogate son. Alongside the story of Walt and Judy and Looee, the baby chimp they acquire and adopt--from the beginning there is a presentiment of tragedy--McAdam places a parallel narrative set at a primate research institute in Florida, where, for decades, the intricate cultures of chimpanzees have been documented and their formidable linguistic and problem-solving abilities have been developed and celebrated. Here, too, the crux of the story has to do with loneliness and empathy; people (and nonpeople) are to be marveled at for their ability and willingness to offer fellow creatures the balms of love, compassion and friendship, and McAdam doesn't flinch from the workings of cruelty and brutality, either. There's daring, and some pleasure, in the switches of point of view and especially in McAdam's effort to come up with a subtle, sensitive way to inhabit the chimpanzees and approximate their version of English idiom. Alas, the book founders on McAdam's human idiom, which tends all too often toward abstraction and glib faux profundity: "Walt was in love, and held close the fact that there is nothing more natural or right than buying the world for the woman of your dreams. Try to name the value of that smile to Walt and his life-worn heart." What might be--and occasionally is--touching is undercut by McAdam's indulgences in a clankingly poetic style.

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Starred review from June 1, 2013

Blending the story of a childless Vermont couple who adopt a chimpanzee named Looee with that of a lonely researcher who spends a lifetime monitoring the intellectual capabilities of chimps in his laboratory, award-winning Canadian novelist McAdam (Some Great Thing) has created a robust tale of love, loss, and the complexities of being alive. The portrayal of chimpanzees as individuals with memories isn't just a fictional device; the commonality of human and chimpanzee conceived here is achieved not by eliminating the traits that divide them but by illuminating the differences that unite them. McAdam portrays both humans and animals as deep wells of consciousness, capable of an extraordinary breadth of emotions. VERDICT With concise language, this heartbreaking tale of loneliness and remembrance reminds us that understanding is a process of growth and experience. Readers who enjoyed Benjamin Hale's The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore will find familiar themes working in McAdam's latest, which contributes significantly to the growing literature told from an animal's perspective.--Joshua Finnell, Denison Univ. Lib., Granville, OH

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