Review: Ape House by Sara Gruen

Title: Ape House

Author: Sara Gruen

Published: Allen & Unwin Australia October 2011 {Australian edition}

Synopsis: Isabel Duncan, a scientist at the Great Ape Language Lab, doesn’t understand people, but apes she gets – especially the bonobos Sam, Bonzi, Lola, Mbongo, Jelani, and Makena, who are capable of reason and communication through American Sign Language. Isabel feels more comfortable in their world than she’s ever felt among humans – until she meets John Thigpen, a very married reporter writing a human interest feature. But when an explosion rocks the lab, John’s piece turns into the story of a lifetime – and Isabel must connect with her own kind to save her family of apes from a new form of human exploitation

Status: Read from September 26 to 27, 2011 — I own a copy {Courtesy Allen & Unwin}

My Thoughts:

Ape House is very different from Gruen’s literary character driven book, Water for Elephants (which I loved) and unfortunately the comparison does this novel no favours at all.

Isabel Duncan is a scientific researcher, studying language acquisition with a group of Bonobo apes at a university research center. When the lab is bombed by what is assumed to be animal rights activists, and Isabel badly injured, the Bonobo’s are sold. Devastated, Isabel searches for the apes she considers family eventually discovering they have been bought to star in a new television show, The Ape House. With the help of an investigative reporter, John Thigpen and her lab assistant, Celia, Isabel is determined to rescue the apes from exploitation and find a place these sensitive creatures can call home.

The issue of animal exploitation is a popular one in fiction of late, there have been several titles published that explore the treatment apes who have the ability to communicate. The plot of Ape House is fairly straightforward but it’s essential that the reader feels affection for the bonobo’s for the story to be successful. The author based the apes on her observations at the Great Ape Trust where a language project similar to the one described in this book is taking place. Gruen takes great care to portray the apes as intelligent animals who have their own personalities so that the reader feels a connection to them. It’s just as well because if you don’t care about the fate of the apes then the rest of the story is unlikely to hold your interest.
Where the storyline relates directly to the bonobo’s and Isabel’s efforts to find and rescue them, with the support of Celia and friends, the plot works well and the twist as to who was actually responsible for the bombing was great, if somewhat predictable.
Perhaps I missed something somewhere but what I didn’t think worked was John Thigpen’s role in the novel. He is only ever peripherally part of the main thrust of the story and his relationship issues with his wife seemed to be wholly irrelevant. In fact, you could probably excise John altogether and it would have no impact on the book at all except Ape House would have then been a novella.

On the author’s website a description of the novel states “Part expose, thriller, gothic romance, comedy & farce…” and this is probably the most apt summary of the novel. Unfortunately it’s not a combination that worked for me, I simply felt that very early on, Gruen lost sight of the heart of Ape House and was never able to bring it back into focus.   Such a shame really because Gruen obviously has such passion for the apes {watch the video below} and yet fails to do them justice in this poorly executed novel.

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Available to Purchase

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