posted on 29 Oct 2015

We are all completely beside ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler

( warning to potential readers - there are a few spoilers in this review)

This is a story about a very unusual American childhood in which Rosemary appears to be the only surviving sibling of an unconventional family.  The narrator tells us that she is going to start the story 'in the middle' and we learn that she is a student undertaking an undergraduate course in a rather half-hearted way at an out of home state university. An incident in the canteen with another student, Harlow, causes her to to be arrested and this triggers a period of deep reflection about her unusual past life and her enduring identity problems.

Early on she explains that both her sister Fern and her brother, Lowell mysteriously disappeared from the family when she was five years old and that the ensuing grief to herself and her parents has never been resolved. It seems that her fragile mother suffered at least one devastating mental breakdown as a result and that her father sought refuge in his work and in alcohol. The author thus sets up the mystery very cleverly as the reader immediately knows that there is something seriously amiss in this family - but is it to do with madness, incest, murder or a combination of all three and possibly even worse? 

Rosemary reveals that her father was engaged in animal research as a university psychologist and it took me a while to pick up on this heavy hint. I don't think that I am giving much away by telling you that Fern is a chimpanzee who has been introduced to this human family as part of a scientific experiment, as we learn later frequently happened in real life America from the 1930s onwards. From the age of one month, Rosie was brought up in parallel with her chimpanzee  ' sister' who is treated as one of the family. They grow to be inseparable siblings and their development is closely observed and logged by their parents along with a series of graduate students. The elder brother has a very close relationship with them both and the first few years of their lives are recalled with much affection. Then 'something' happens and Rosemary is sent to live with her grandparents for a while. When she returns home Fern has disappeared, never to be spoken of again. Accurate recollection of events is rather confused after this but the brother also leaves home soon after and cuts off all ties with the family for ten years. Rosemary's subsequent difficulties with fitting into a life with only human children to play with is very sad.

So, a series of very traumatic events which have been long buried until the arrest and subsequent developments forces the true story to be revealed in all its horror. I'm not going to spoil things here because it is a cleverly told, well paced narrative that presents the main protagonist as a very damaged but also a very sensitive character. She ultimately finds a sort of peace although I am personally not convinced by the resolution to the story. In the end I couldn't decide whether it was supposed to be a true ending or a dreamlike fantasy.

I strongly recommend that you read this interesting book where you will learn a lot about psychology, linguistics and about animal welfare concerns along the way. I really liked her deft storytelling and the way she painted some very unusual lonely but strongly principled characters.

 

Karen Argent

26th October 2015