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Captivity | 
| Author: Debbie Lee Wesselmann
Publisher: John F Blair Pub
Category: Book
List Price: $22.95
Buy New: $6.95
You Save: $16.00 (70%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  14 reviews
Sales Rank: 380195
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 293
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6.1 x 1.3
ISBN: 0895873532
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780895873538
ASIN: 0895873532
Publication Date: February 15, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: A brand new book in perfect condition!! You'll tremble with ecstasy when this book gets to you!!! =) No remainder marks nor price clipped dustjackets.
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Product Description
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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| Customer Reviews: Read 9 more reviews...
 It's About Cages July 3, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
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.
Creating Empathy for the Helpless and Unfortunate ... June 19, 2008
30 out of 42 found this review helpful
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]
Family problems June 6, 2008
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
Born to a middle-class academic family, Dana Armstrong might have expected to lead a sedate life. She had loving parents, a younger brother, Zack, and a "sister" - Annie. Interacting with loving care to each other, they seemed the ideal family. But there was a discontinuity - Annie was a chimpanzee. The trio was part of an experiment by Dana's father Reginald. Primate researchers in the 1960s were eager to learn if human-chimp communications could be achieved. Living with a human family continuously instead of in a labatory facility seemed the best opportunity. Wesselmann, in a finely wrought tale of the experiment and its consequences has provided us with a stirring, yet sensitive tale.
She opens with Dana well along in her life. She's gained a PhD in Primatology, following her father's path, and operates a sanctuary for chimps that have been subjected to a range of medical experiments, including being given AIDS. Her South Carolina site seems ideal, isolated, well protected to reduce outsider concerns, and supplied by caring donors. She's on the local university staff, keeping her academic foundation sound. Yet, somebody has gained access to the site, releasing the chimps. In the course of recovering them, one of the chimps is struck by a car and killed. The facility is hardly a secret, but the community rises in protest. It also garners the attention of somebody Dana had been trying to forget - Prof. Richard Lamier. Complicating her circumstances yet further, a new element enters her life in the person of Sam Wendt. Just what she doesn't need now is a critical journalist writing to an already hostile community. But Sam says magic words about her childhood with Annie. He's not to be summarily dismissed.
Wesselmann builds her story and her characters with seemingly effortless grace. It is only as event progress and interaction builds that the power of her prose emerges. The pace is swift and furious - this is not a book easily set aside - but nothing is forced or contrived. Dana is beset by many foils - Lamier emerges with increasing presence from the background, but it's her own brother Zack on whom much of this story hinges. He's a wastrel, an emotional nomad, and a constant pressure on her goodwill and energy. There's a hint that he may have had something to do with releasing the chimps, although motivation seems lacking. The chimp release leads to widespread implications with the future of the sanctuary and Dana's own career hanging over an abyss. She has little but her own resources of strength and cunning to draw on. Can that possibly be enough with all that's arrayed against her?
The author's account goes beyond prose skills. Clearly this work rests on a solid research base. It's easy to believe Wesselmann was at the side of more than one primatologist, likely in a refuge such as the one depicted here. Chimp behaviours - including one young one obviously brought up among humans, who insists on clothes and a potty, are too vividly depicted and explained to be fabricated. Her research points up the underlying importance of the subjects in this tale - can we justify what we do in experimenting on animals. Especially our closest living cousins [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
Primatology Made Interesting April 21, 2008
7 out of 9 found this review helpful
"There are no boring stories. There are only boring writers."
These were the words of my first newspaper editor, words conveyed to me after I had turned in an excrutiatingly dull story about a mechanical engineering conference. A good writer can take any subject, no matter how mundane, and make it an exceptional read. Take primatology, for example; while certainly a topic of interest to some, it's not a theme one would expect for a novel. My interest in primate studies/behavior was nominal, which is why I picked up Debbie Lee Wesselmann's latest novel with some trepidation. My fears were for naught; Wesselmann delivers a fast-paced, informative tale of intrigue and political posturing in her novel CAPTIVITY.
Make no mistake: This is a novel far removed from Wesselmann's earlier title, "Trudor & The Balloonist." CAPTIVITY demonstrates how much the author has progressed as a novelist; the descriptions of primate captivity and behavior and human interaction were fascinating, and indicative this author really did her homework. Furthermore, the narrative was strong, compelling, and thoroughly character-driven. Here's but one example:
"He followed her gaze and found he, too, was mesmerized by the proximity of the drug. The lull of it. The scratch of it that now clawed inside his veins, begging for release. The happiness that lay there, if only brief and illusory. The duality of freedom and enslavement. This he could share with Becca; they could fall down the abyss together and enjoy the free fall like kids on a roller coaster who did not know the track would end suddenly, midair.
Yes, he thought. Yes."
That's good stuff.
This is a novel that examines the dynamic of trying to keep a university primate sanctuary afloat (amidst never-ending political posturing) while Dana Armstrong, the protagonist, tries to juggle a relationship with a most dysfunctional brother. I had no idea of the politics involved--all the behind the scenes machinations--in the field of primatology, so this novel informs as it entertains. Plus, a freelance journalist, for once, is presented in a favorable light, and that's a good thing. Primatology may not be your cup of tea, but Debbie Lee Wesselmann definitely makes it palatable; CAPTIVITY is a page-turner, an enlightening and pleasurable read.
--D. Mikels, Author, The Reckoning
A dysfunctional family drama writ large April 20, 2008
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
The real-life background of "Captivity" is the often-unwittingly callous experimentation done during the Seventies, when baby chimpanzees were raised as human children, in human households, and taught sign language and human mannerisms--only to be inhumanely discarded when the research was completed. Most famous were the Nim Chimpsky and Washoe projects, done partly in response to Noam Chomsky's thesis that language is a uniquely human attribute.
Fast forward three decades and Dana, one of the children in the experiments, now a primatologist, has assumed responsibility for a sanctuary for chimpanzee survivors of HIV testing and ill-kempt zoos and behavior modification. The center is confronted by a public-relations disaster when the chimps are released in the dead of night, endangering themselves and the tranquility of the surrounding neighborhood--and unleashing the always-latent NIMBY currents unique to American suburbia. Complicating things are Dana's brother, Zack, approaching middle age and clinging to adolescence; animal rights activists who are ambivalent and confused about the sanctuary's purpose; a well-meaning journalist writing a follow-up story about children who were raised with chimps; and an unscrupulous psychologist, a longtime family enemy, who hopes to wrest control of the primate sanctuary from his colleagues in anthropology.
The sanctuary's chimpanzees, credibly portrayed, often steal the scenes. Yet the author, wisely, avoids spinning an anthropomorphic tale of human-chimp interaction; you won't find here the literary fiction equivalent of "The Secret of NIMH." True, "Captivity" does examine the ways in which our species projects its attributes (and foibles) on the animals with which we grudgingly share the earth and, more specifically, it imagines the psychological trauma suffered by two adults who, as involuntary children-subjects in simian experiments, lost a family member they believed to be more a sibling than a pet.
But the novel establishes its story on a broader stage than the confines of the sanctuary might suggest; it is a compelling, empathetic drama about a truly dysfunctional family. While the story of Dana and Zack would seem to prove Tolstoy's aphorism that every unhappy family is unhappy for its own reason, the loss and betrayal endured by this hapless pair, as well as their paths to self-discovery, are common to us all.
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