From bestselling and award-winning author T.C. Boyle, a lively,
thought-provoking novel that asks us what it would be like if we could
really talk to the animals
When animal behaviorist Guy Schermerhorn demonstrates on a TV game show
that he has taught Sam, his juvenile chimp, to speak in sign language,
Aimee Villard, an undergraduate at Guy's university, is so taken with
the performance that she applies to become his assistant. A romantic and
intellectual attachment soon morphs into an interspecies love triangle
that pushes hard at the boundaries of consciousness and the question of
what we know and how we know it.
What if it were possible to speak to the members of another species--to
converse with them, not just give commands or coach them but to really
have an exchange of ideas and a meeting of minds? Did apes have God? Did
they have souls? Did they know about death and redemption? About prayer?
The economy, rockets, space? Did they miss the jungle? Did they even
know what the jungle was? Did they dream? Make wishes? Hope for the
future?
These are some the questions T.C. Boyle asks in his wide-ranging and
hilarious new novel Talk to Me, exploring what it means to be human,
to communicate with another, and to truly know another person--or
animal...
