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Summary
Summary
A FINALIST FOR THE 2016 CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE AND THE 2017 YOUNG LIONS AWARD
"A terrifically auspicious debut." --Janet Maslin, The New York Times
"Smart, timely and powerful . . . A rich examination of America's treatment of race, and the ways we attempt to discuss and confront it today." -- The Huffington Post
The Freeman family--Charles, Laurel, and their daughters, teenage Charlotte and nine-year-old Callie--have been invited to the Toneybee Institute to participate in a research experiment. They will live in an apartment on campus with Charlie, a young chimp abandoned by his mother. The Freemans were selected because they know sign language; they are supposed to teach it to Charlie and welcome him as a member of their family. But when Charlotte discovers the truth about the institute's history of questionable studies, the secrets of the past invade the present in devious ways.
The power of this shattering novel resides in Greenidge's undeniable storytelling talents. What appears to be a story of mothers and daughters, of sisterhood put to the test, of adolescent love and grown-up misconduct, and of history's long reach, becomes a provocative and compelling exploration of America's failure to find a language to talk about race.
"A magnificently textured, vital, visceral feat of storytelling . . . [by] a sharp, poignant, extraordinary new voice of American literature." --Téa Obreht, author of The Tiger's Wife
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Greenidge's ambitious debut novel is the multiperspective story of the Toneybee Institute, a converted music school in western Massachusetts ostensibly specializing in fostering communication between chimpanzees and humans. The Freemans-Laurel, Charles, and their two daughters, Charlotte and Callie-are a family recruited to the institute from the Boston area in 1990 on account of their skill at sign language, the methodology chosen for a new experiment. Although no members of the family are deaf, Laurel learned sign language at a young age as a result of her distrust of spoken language, growing up in Maine as the only black girl in a hundred-mile radius, and she has passed along this method of communication to her daughters. At the Toneybee Institute, the Freemans welcome a chimpanzee named Charlie into their family and begin an effort to earn his trust and, eventually, teach him to speak. Narrated mostly by Charlotte, a high school freshman, the story moves back and forth in time as we learn the secrets of the institute's disturbing and shocking past. The narrative structure is somewhat schematic, the pieces fitting together almost too perfectly as information is withheld to provide tension. However, the themes of communication across differences is nonetheless deftly constructed, encompassing weighty issues such as race, language, sexuality, and the intersections of religion and science, arriving finally at a heartbreaking confrontation. The end result is a sobering look at how we communicate with one another and what inevitably gets lost in translation. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* When Laurel, an African-American mother from Boston's South Side, accepts a position to teach sign language to a chimpanzee named Charlie at a private ape research facility in the verdant Berkshire Mountains, she unwittingly introduces her two young daughters to a disturbing world of mystery and misogyny, racism and retaliation. The institute's first director in the 1920s used racial profiling to horrific effect, conducting clandestine experiments on black men and seducing a lonely black woman into posing for compromising drawings all allegedly in the name of science. Some 70 years later, Laurel's teenage daughter, Charlotte, and her youngest daughter, Callie, will find themselves caught in a struggle that pits their own blossoming desire for identity and belonging against their mother's mania for Charlie's attention and a society that has yet to acknowledge the insidious ways bigotry and discrimination undermine its most basic institutions. Greenidge's wondrous first novel pits the sins of the past against the desire for the future in a multifaceted narrative that challenges concepts of culture and communication.--Haggas, Carol Copyright 2016 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
Teenager Charlotte Freeman isn't thrilled when her mother uproots the family to the Toneybee Institute. All of the members of the family know how to speak in sign language and were hired to live at the Institute and teach Charlie, a chimpanzee, how to communicate. Every moment is filmed, and Charlotte is confronted with bigotry everywhere-the town is geographically divided by race. She soon discovers the wrongness of it all-an African American family raising an ape as one of their own. Back in the 1920s, the Toneybee Institute conducted racist, Tuskegee-like experiments, which readers learn about from the point of view of a black woman and from the perspective of the institute's rich white founder. Charlotte's coming-of-age story will ring true with teens, who will cringe at the blatant and subtle racism she encounters. Her sexual identity as a lesbian is never the center of the story, and neither are the apes. This is a literary yet easily approachable novel about race, family, and relationships, making Greenidge an author to watch. While the similarities to Kenneth Oppel's Half Brother and Sara Gruen's Ape House are obvious, this volume would also pair well with Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. VERDICT This strong debut novel is perfect for book clubs and will initiate discussion about race, stereotypes, and microaggressions-Sarah Hill, Lake Land College, Mattoon, IL © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
In Greenidge's debut novel, an African-American family is hired by a private research institute to "adopt" a chimpanzee and teach the animal sign language. Charlotte Freeman, the older of two teenage daughters, is less than enthused about her parents' decisionwhich means moving from their south Boston home to take up residence at the remote Toneybee Institute for Ape Research. Greenidge proves herself a master of dialogue, which helps her craft engaging, well-drawn characters. "All our pets die," Charlotte says, protesting the imminent move-in with the chimpanzee. "We're no good with animals." But Charlotte's mother, Laurel, maintains the chimpanzee is not meant to be a pet: "He'll be like a brother to you," she proclaims; as a sign language teacher, Laurel is the one who will be responsible for the chimpanzee's education. But as the book cuts between the present and the past, the racially exploitative history of the research institute is revealed, and the family's life spirals out of control. This is not surprising: there's a long racist history in the United States of comparing black Americans to monkeysbeginning with the exhibitions of Africans side by side with orangutans in the monkey houses of zoos in the early part of the 20th century and leading up to the present day, when African-Americans, including President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama, are still repeatedly called "apes" and "monkeys." But with humor, irony, and wit, Greenidge tackles this sensitive subject and crafts a light but deeply respectful take on this heavy aspect of America's treatment of black people. This is a timely work, full of disturbing but necessary observations. A vivid and poignant coming-of-age story that is also an important exploration of family, race, and history. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
In 1929, white heiress Julia Toneybee-Leroy established a research institute devoted to the study of chimpanzees and their language. In 1990, a family of color are moving to the Toneybee Institute, set in a predominantly white Massachusetts county, to teach hominid Charlie "to speak" via sign language. Laurel Freeman taught sign language to deaf students in Boston, and her daughters Charlotte and Callie are proficient as well. Charlotte is now attending Cumberland County High School, where her father, Charles, is going to teach math. There she bonds with one of her few black classmates, while Callie seeks Charlie's attention through overeating. Laurel finds her own means of reaching Charlie, which, when revealed, has a lacerating effect on her family. The experiment dovetails with one involving the local African American community of Spring City in 1929. White anthropologist Dr. Terrence Gardner, working at Toneybee, was determined to clarify or perhaps verify the misconceptions whites had about their black neighbors. Verdict Greenidge's debut novel rips its characters to pieces as the Freemans become embroiled in the experiment and confront the critical need of all creatures to be loved. Highly recommended for readers of literary fiction and science-themed stories.-Bette-Lee Fox, Library Journal © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
Charlie lived behind a door in the living room. He had a large, oval-shape space with low ceilings and no windows and no furniture. Instead, there were bundles of pastel-colored blankets heaped up on the scarred wooden floor. Even from where I stood, I could tell the blankets were the scratchy kind, cheap wool. The room was full of plants--house ferns and weak African violets and nodding painted ladies. "They're here to simulate the natural world," Dr. Paulsen told us, but I thought it was an empty gesture. Charlie had never known any forests, and yet Dr. Paulsen assumed some essential part of him pined for them. Charlie sat beside a fern. A man knelt beside him. "That's Max, my assistant," Dr. Paulsen said. Max was wearing jeans and a red T-shirt, his lab coat balled up on the floor. He was pale, with messy red hair. He was trying to grow a beard. Probably just graduated from college a couple years earlier. In front of us now, Charlie had gotten hold of Max's glasses and was methodically pressing his tongue against each lens. Max tried to coax the glasses away, but every time he got close, Charlie only bent forward and licked him, too, all the while looking Max in his small brown eyes. Max broke some leaves off the fern, ran them around Charlie's ears and under his chin, distracting him. "They're playing," Dr. Paulsen explained. But it seemed more like a very gentle disagreement. Charlie shook his head at the leaves but stayed doggedly focused on tonguing Max's glasses. "Max," Dr. Paulsen called, and Max squinted and waved. He picked up Charlie and brought him to us. As he came closer, Charlie let the glasses hang loose in his hands, and he craned his neck toward Dr. Paulsen. Now he looked like a baby. Taped around his waist was a disposable diaper. A few of his stray hairs were caught in the tape's glue, and he kept dipping his fingers under the rough plastic hem, trying to worry them loose. My father went to him first. He gently rubbed the top of Charlie's head, not wanting to scare him. Charlie flinched and my father moved away. Next came Callie, who smiled and smiled, trying to get Charlie to bare his teeth back, but he wouldn't do it. Then it was my turn. I reached out my hand to touch him. I thought he would be bristly and sharp, like a cat, but his hair was fine, so soft it was almost unbearable. I could feel, at its downy ends, the heat spreading up from his skin beneath. I pulled my hand away quickly. The scent of him stayed on my fingers, old and sharp, like the scent of witch hazel. Charlie yawned. His breath was rancid, like dried, spoiled milk. Later, when he got used to us, he would run his lips up and down our hands so that all of our skin, too, smelled like Charlie's mouth and the hefty, mournful stench of wild animal. My mother was the last to hold him. She was crying, and she said through her tears, her hands shaking as she reached out to touch him, "Isn't he beautiful?" I wanted to say something snide. I wanted to say what I had been telling her since she told us about this experiment: that this was crazy, that she was crazy, that it would never work. I wanted to sign bullshit. But I looked into my mother's face, wet and wide open with joy, and I couldn't help myself. "Yes," I told her, "he's beautiful." DR. PAULSEN STAYED for dinner, but none of us even pretended to eat. We were all watching my mother and Charlie. She sat at the head of the table, Charlie on her lap, a baby bottle in her hand, trying to get him to drink. She kept her face bent close to his, her chin butting the end of the bottle. Charlie spit the nipple out once, twice. Each time he rejected it, Dr. Paulsen's hands rose up as if she wanted to push it back in his mouth herself. My mother only saw Charlie. She refused to be discouraged. The fifth time, he took it. With a loud, rude swallow he began to eat. He drank until the little plastic bag inside crumpled down on itself. He loved the bottle so much he wouldn't give it up until my mother rolled a piece of lettuce and held it to his mouth. He parted his lips long enough for her to pull his empty away. Dr. Paulsen studied them. She turned to my father. "You're ready to begin teaching at Courtland County High?" "Yes," he said. "Especially because Charlotte's going there, too. She and I will help each other--you know, find our seat in the lunchroom and make friends and all that. Maybe we can even share a locker." But Dr. Paulsen didn't laugh. She was watching my mother and Charlie again. We all were. "And how do you think you'll like teaching at Charlotte's school?" she asked. My mother looked up. "It's getting late for him to be awake, isn't it?" "I suppose you're right." Dr. Paulsen hugged each of us good-bye. She patted Charlie quickly on the head. At the front door she stopped, turned. "He likes another drink before bed. Make sure to sign it to him. Tell him what you're doing." She took a step backward, still watching Charlie. But he had set her aside, was concentrating on twining his fingers through my mother's hair. When Dr. Paulsen was gone, my mother told us it was time for bed. Our first luxury at the Toneybee: Callie and I got separate rooms. Hers was at one end of the hall and mine was at the other. I made it halfway to my room before Callie ran up behind me. "I can't find my pajamas," she said, breathlessly. "So?" "So, can you help me find them?" "I have to put mine on first." "That's okay. I'll come with you." In her room, we were shy with each other. Callie tried to hide herself while she changed. When she was finished, I began to leave, but she caught my hand. "Well, what is it?" "Shouldn't we say good night to them?" Callie asked. "I don't want to," I said, and regretted it. "Why?" "They should have stayed with us, not Charlie." "We're too old for that." "That doesn't matter. It's our first night here." "They asked us to say good night." Callie still held my hand. She shuffled her feet back and forth over the marble floor, and we both listened for a bit to the unfamiliar sound. "I feel bad not saying good night to them," Callie said finally. I sighed. "Fine. We'll do it. Come on." When we got to our parents' room, they were already in bed. In the soft glow from the lamp on the nightstand my father sat propped up on a bank of the Toneybee's pillows, his glasses off, a book open on his lap. My mother was already curled up beside him. It was only when we got to the edge of the bed that we saw Charlie lying in the space between them. My mother said, "This is a onetime thing." Callie leaned forward to kiss them good night. She bent toward my mother, but just as her lips brushed her cheek, Charlie lifted one thin finger and swatted it hard across Callie's face. Callie jerked back, surprised. "It's okay. You scared him, that's all," my mother explained. Callie nodded, tried to smile. It was special to be touched by Charlie, even if it was a blow. "Good night," she called to Charlie, who kept his finger crooked above his head, a warning. I took Callie's hand and we turned and started down the hallway back to her room. We were halfway there when we heard it. First it sounded like something in a cartoon--"hoo hoo hoo"--too silly to be real. Then a wheeze. Then a wail, so low, so long, so hollow that it sounded like the most sorrowful sound in the world. It was a very old sound, something that had welled up from a deep and hidden place to whip and sting the world. The sound suddenly broke, left a jagged stillness that was worse than the crying. I held my breath. It was a relief when it started up again. Callie and I hurried back to our parents' room. When we got there, all the lights were on. In the glare of the overhead lamp I saw Charlie cling first to my mother's nightgown and then to the sheets of the bed. He arched his whole body and then flattened himself over and over again. My mother knelt beside him on the bed, trying to get her hands on the small of his back, on his arms, anywhere, but he wouldn't be still. With his mouth that wide open, I could see all the way down his throat, maybe almost to his heart, to something red and shaking. My mother was saying over and over again, "Please, sweetheart, please love, please." My father was out of bed, standing behind her, his hands hovering above her. "All right now, all right now," he murmured. But Charlie kept crying. He would not be comforted by any words they said. Excerpted from We Love You, Charlie Freeman: A Novel by Kaitlyn Greenidge All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
