Creating Empathy for the Helpless and Unfortunate ...

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	• Captivity Debbie Lee Wesselmann John F Blair Pub, 2008 - 293 pages average customer review:based on 17 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

`..the law of multiple truths..'

In Dr Dana Armstrong's world, as the director of a sanctuary for chimpanzees in South Carolina, she is doing the best she can for those chimpanzees damaged or exploited by their interaction with humans. Unfortunately, the sanctuary is vandalised, chimpanzees are set free and the resulting publicity threatens to destroy everything that Dana has worked towards. In addition, echoes from Dana's own childhood are threatening to place her career in jeopardy.

In this moving novel, Ms Wesselmann gives life to an engaging cast of characters, include chimpanzees and their carers as well as activists, academics and villains. In confronting her past, Dana also learns to face a different future. This story is both heart warming and heart wrenching. It invites readers to think beyond the fiction. Deftly written, without extraneous verbiage, Ms Wesselmann writes a powerful novel where not everything is as it seems. Family secrets, power struggles, romance are issues in the human and chimpanzee worlds as well. I finished this novel some days ago but will continue to think about the messages and their ramifications for some time to come. And that, for me, is usually the difference between a 4 and 5 star novel.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

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The author's goal is acheived

I was just looking for a story about animals for entertainment. I didn't expect to learn so much about primates and research and I never expected such a complex weave of animal and human behavior in a novel. The author maintains, like I do, that without understanding animals we won't be motivated to save their way of life, which is important to us in ways we don't normally comprehend. That is to say that when "one of us is chained, none of us are free." And we are animals too, which we often forget. The human side of this story could have only been crafted by a wise, deep thinking author who understands the complicated makeup of humans. The ending was thought provoking, educational and unexpected. The information about the animals was an
in- depth insight someone could have only gained by close personal observation. I came away from this read much richer.

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Captivating

Ms. Wesselmann skillfully introduces the reader to the world of primate psychology in her new novel "Captivity." Protagonist Dr. Dana Armstrong, a zoologist specializing in behavior of chimpanzees, comes to her profession naturally after her father conducted a five-year experiment in her childhood home in which he raised a chimp as a human child. As an adult she runs the South Carolina Primate Project (SCPP), a protected area where chimpanzees that cannot be kept in zoos, or have been released from research, can be allowed to live almost normal lives (being that return of chimps to the wild once they are kept in captivity is a death sentence). Her already challenging task of managing a diverse group of chimps is made much more difficult by a break-in that releases several dangerous animals into the community, putting the future of the project at serious risk. The identity of the culprit isn't too hard to figure out; the motive is much more so. To help unravel the mystery, which plays out primarily in the world of zoological academia, we meet journalist Sam Wendt.

Ms. Wesselmann's "day job" as an English professor must have helped her with the academic settings. An impressive amount of research must have gone preceded her writing so convincingly about the interactions between humans and chimps that make up a large part of the novel. Interestingly, there is now a real place, Chimp Haven in Louisiana, that is much like the SCPP, but while Ms. Wesselmann was writing "Captivity", that facility was still in the planning phase, and did not serve as the model.

Four-and-a-half stars (rounded up to five for the author answering my e-mails) and encouragement to Ms. Wesselmann to keep writing novels about the interaction of humans and nature, much like Barbara Kingsolver, who seems to have moved on to being a full-time essayist.

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It's About Cages

I gave this book four stars because it's not Pulitzer material. But it's an excellent novel. The story unfolds with enough background to allow us to begin immediately to feel involved, and builds on the basic information with just the right amount of well-timed exposition. Each character "unfolds" exceptionally well so that the reader definitely experiences "getting to know" them moments. It's a skill to be able to do that well, and Debbie Lee Wesselmann is a skilled story-teller.

The basics of the story have been outlined well by other reviewers so I won't recap those. What I will say is that the book is one to be savored because the themes the author offers us are worthy of careful consideration. As I savored this book, I realized that it's not just about the "captivity" of the primates... or, rather, it IS about the captivity of ALL of the primates, including the human ones. And the careful reader will be fascinated by how each handles their "imprisonment" and if or how each escapes.

And, in the meantime, reading about ape behavior is fascinating and great fun. And you may also enjoy the irony of learning about how university boards and funding committees can behave.

Good book. I recommend it.

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Creating Empathy for the Helpless and Unfortunate ...

Debbie Lee Wesselmann provides a spell binding novel which sheds light on the precarious plight of chimpanzees which are raised in captivity and after having served the purpose of humans ... their lives are left in limbo. In a world concerned with saving our planet by going green, decreasing carbon dioxide emissions from gas-guzzling automobiles to keep our air cleaner and prevent global warming from destroying everything - here is another cause which deserves our attention and support with economic resources. The book is written with sensitivity, compassion, and knowledge about the lives of chimpanzees in captivity. It is a superbly written highly original novel which combines adventure, romance, and human interest, maintaining the reader's attention from start to finish.

Essentially, the book is about the scientist, Dr. Dana Armstrong, Director of the South Carolina Primate Project and her attempts to keep afloat the sanctuary which serves as home to chimpanzees who have been discarded after being involuntary participants in scientific experiments at labs or residents at zoos which have closed. The major problem she is facing is how to convince the Unviersity president and a major donor that her facility is a safe place for the animals and is not a threat to the neighborhood. Unfortunately, there was a break-in at the sanctuary and the animals were freed ... someone obtained a key and simply opened up the cages, letting the animals roam about the offices, sanctuary and beyond, into the nearby family neighborhood.

Dana, Andy, the vet for the animals, Mary one of the research associates and graduate students helped round up the missing animals - all except one - the most dangerous, named Benji. Benji had been owned by a cruel animal trainer and had unpredicatable behavior as a result. Dana had to call the local sheriff to help find him and she had to admit Benji could be dangerous. Sadly, when Benji was found - he was dead, having been hit by a car. It caused Dana much grief because it reminded her of Annie, a chimp with whom she was raised as a child. The chimp came into their household as an experiment by her psychologist father, who wanted it treated as a family member. Annie was taken away after an unfortunate incident occurred to Dana ... Annie was supposed to have gone to a lab for experiments but the trail as to what really happened to her led to a dead-end. No one knows whether Annie was alive or dead. No one knows what kind of experiments were performed on Annie. This incident haunted Dana ...

Unexpectedly, a free lance reporter Sam Wendt entered Dana's life. He threw her world upside down. Initially, he asked questions about the experiment led by her father, regarding teaching chimps the use of language. Later, after learning about the break-in and delving deeply into the politics of animal research and competition for funding, Sam became a willing accomplice in her quest to save the chimps and discover who was behind this disastrous event. The author deftly connects a haunting past event in Dana's life to her present predicament, where her qualifications to lead and direct this sanctuary are being seriously questioned ... The reader will learn much about the sad circumstances which surround the lives of these most endearing animals, chimpanzees. Most readers will empathize with their condition and be hooked on this story where the goal is to keep this non-threatening primate sanctuary thriving and maintain the safety of its residents. Erika Borsos [pepper flower]

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

When someone releases the chimpanzees at the South Carolina Primate Project, its director, Dana Armstrong, is forced to confront the complexity of both her past and the present as she struggles to preserve the chimps' sanctuary.

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