[RIG]⋙ Read We Love You Charlie Freeman A Novel Kaitlyn Greenidge 9781616204679 Books

We Love You Charlie Freeman A Novel Kaitlyn Greenidge 9781616204679 Books

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We Love You Charlie Freeman A Novel Kaitlyn Greenidge 9781616204679 Books

It starts with a simple and intriguing premise: an African-American family (the Freemans) from Boston is chosen to take part in an experiment that involves living with a chimpanzee (Charlie) and teaching him to speak sign language. It's not just an experiment in language acquisition, though - it's also an experiment in whether and how a chimp can be integrated into a human family. In simple terms, it's an experiment about love: will members of a human family be able to see the chimp as a family member, worthy of love? Can the chimp learn to love any or all of the family members?

And thus a black family is housed with a chimp, living in an decrepit, ancient mansion turned ape research institute, which immediately leads the reader to wonder about the (possible) racial implications of this experiment and its parameters. As the story unspools itself, it becomes clear that race certainly plays a role in this project, and the institution sponsoring it has a long and sordid racist history. But even as this history grinds itself into the reader's consciousness, the story of the Freeman family itself lopes along, pulling you forward in a mesmerizing sort of way. Eventually, of course, the two stories collide, coming together indisputably at a Thanksgiving dinner, and then they clatter along together in a noisy, clashing kind of rush until the denouement arrives in all of its strangeness and unexpected brilliance.

This book is chock full of well-established and dysfunctional characters (good lady Julia turns out to be delightfully unhinged), complicated relationships, and icebergs of conversations: chilly, beautiful, dangerous, with so much lurking beneath the surface. It's a book about love, language - and the limits of them both. Highly recommended!


Tags : We Love You, Charlie Freeman: A Novel [Kaitlyn Greenidge] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <DIV><B>A FINALIST FOR THE 2016 CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE AND THE 2017 YOUNG LIONS AWARD<BR /><BR /> “A terrifically auspicious debut.” —Janet Maslin,Kaitlyn Greenidge,We Love You, Charlie Freeman: A Novel,Algonquin Books,1616204672,Families - Massachusetts,Families;Massachusetts;Fiction.,Family life;Massachusetts;Fiction.,Sign language,Sign language;Fiction.,AMERICAN CONTEMPORARY FICTION,African American - General,American Contemporary Fiction - Individual Authors +,FICTION African American General,FICTION Family Life General,FICTION Literary,FICTION Psychological,Family Life,Fiction,Fiction - General,Fiction-Coming of Age,Fiction-Psychological,FictionAfrican American - General,FictionLiterary,FictionPsychological,GENERAL,General Adult,Massachusetts,Psychological,United States

We Love You Charlie Freeman A Novel Kaitlyn Greenidge 9781616204679 Books Reviews

If your family was invited to adopt a chimpanzee, and treat him as a child or sibling, would you do it? In Kaitlyn Greenidge’s startling debut novel, the Freeman family do just that they move into a Chimpanzee research institute on the “white side of town” and adopt Charlie, teaching him sign language in an effort to communicate with animals.

“This car doesn’t feel like ours,” I said.
“Well, it is now,” my father replied. “So get used to it.”
Outside of the car it was dark and hot and early morning August in Dorchester. Though the crack of the window, I could smell every part of the city – every slab of asphalt, every rotten plank of wood siding, every crumbling stucco wall, every scarred and skinny tree – I could smell all of it beginning to sweat.

I read an excerpt of this novel in the Algonquin catalogue and was intrigued by the premise. It did not disappoint an African American family during the civil rights movement, working with chimpanzees. I was eager to see the family dynamic with the chimp. To be honest, I expected something a bit Doctor Doolittle-y, but with a dose of social awareness on top of it. This novel is nothing like that. Instead, it focuses on the elder daughter’s perspective, as she watches her family rise and fall as a result of their involvement in the experiment. It also switches back and forth with Nymphadora, a woman in 1929 who is also involved in experiments at the Chimpanzee research institute. The juxtaposition of the stories raises some difficult questions.

What I envy is not their skin but their insouciance. I envy the freedom to sin with only a little bit of consequence, to commit one selfish act and not have it mean the downfall of my entire people. Where indecency and mischief do not mean annihilation. I envy that their capacity for love is already assumed, not set aside or presumed missing, like it is for us Negro women.

Greenidge’s writing style is subtle and authentic, and the words disappear as you are immersed in the story – a sign of good writing. She is able to convey a strong political message without being didactic the complexity of the situation slowly reveals itself and the reader is left to make her own mind up about the ethics or morality of it. I liked that it made me think, and it also made me question my own preconceptions and prejudices.

One of the most important things Mumma drilled into me was never to let a white person think that they knew you. In Spring City, Mumma and Pop and all the other Stars and Saturnites were planets, possessing deep and mysterious seas, complicated deserts, forests of knowledge and pain. but step across the border into Courtland County and they were little more than rocks, pebbles really, to the white people that lived there. Small and insignificant, without the weight or density to command even the smallest orbit. Mumma told me that this underestimation was an advantage. It meant you could do things white people would never even know about. Your invisibility was your power.

While I gained insight into Nymphadora and Charlotte’s minds, I was less able to connect with the background characters – Charlotte’s father, mother and sister. It meant that I was less emotionally affected by what happened to them. Consequently, the dramatic climax of the novel was less dramatic, to me, and seemed to be cast behind a hazy smoke; it was rushed and could have been a little better.

This was the one thing about Charlie that had fascinated him did chimpanzees, like humans, contain a multitude of selves? When he’d raised the question with Laurel, playfully, one night early on in the experiment, as they lay before sleep, she’d gotten indignant. “Of course they do,” she’d sputtered. But the way she’d said it, it was obvious she hadn’t thought of it before, was only defending this answer because she loved Charlie and couldn’t bear to think of him as different from herself.

The strength of the novel is in the complexity of the ideas. Our connectedness to others, of different races and different species, based on love, as it clashes with the prejudices that led people to mistakenly place each other in categories of consciousness or awareness, without ever trying to communicate or understand each other. It is, primarily, a novel about communication and what happens when communication breaks down because of false assumptions.

That was, perhaps, the source of their cleaving in a nutshell. Laurel could not conceive of anyone that she loved as not being of the same mind as her. That is what she’d said when he’d raged at her about it all… “I never asked because I thought you would agree, Charles. I thought we were of the same mind.” Himself, he knew he could love those of a different mind, but even he had his limits.

This was an excellent debut novel, and I would put it on recommended reading lists for high school students, college students, or book clubs – there are plenty of interesting aspects for discussion and it is absolutely a novel that needs to be part of our conversation.
This novel quickly went from very good to fantastic. The premise and sample interested me immediately--an African American family who speaks sign language(s) moves to a scientific institute as part of a study to see if chimps (one in particular, the titular Charlie) can learn to sign.

At first it feels almost quirky; the first point of view we're given is that of Charlotte, the older of two daughters in the family. She is not happy about her parents' decision to move the family from Boston to rural New England. But as soon as they arrive at the institute, it's clear something with this situation will not be kosher. Much of the book you wait for the other shoe to drop, and as soon as additional points of view from the past and present emerge and repeat, that dread becomes specific until the reality confirms it.

Each family member relates to Charlie--or doesn't--in their own way. Charlotte is standoffish and more concerned with fitting in at the almost entirely white school she begins attending--a hallmark of the town's past (and present) segregation. She begrudgingly becomes friends with the only other black girl and hangs out with her and her mother, who both appear to be radicals. Younger sister Callie is left to her own devices and does her best to be a "big sister" to Charlie; in the meantime, food becomes her comfort. Mother Laurel has the tightest bond with Charlie--too tight, as Charlotte first discovers. Father Charles loves math and Laurel, and his devotion to her is tested by her bond with Charlie.

Alongside the family drama come flashes of the past when the institute first opened. The lens is that of a black woman who begins a disastrous relationship with one of the institute's scientists--a man who proclaims he does not believe white people are biologically better than black people but whose slowly revealed study of local black people proves otherwise. Past and present merge and culminate in one bizarre Thanksgiving dinner, followed by a telling letter written by the institute's foundress (I'm making this word up).

The novel presents one of the most nuanced contemporary portraits of race in America that I've read. Everything stems from the characters, who are deftly drawn, and the structure and lovely prose make it an engaging and subtle read.
It starts with a simple and intriguing premise an African-American family (the Freemans) from Boston is chosen to take part in an experiment that involves living with a chimpanzee (Charlie) and teaching him to speak sign language. It's not just an experiment in language acquisition, though - it's also an experiment in whether and how a chimp can be integrated into a human family. In simple terms, it's an experiment about love will members of a human family be able to see the chimp as a family member, worthy of love? Can the chimp learn to love any or all of the family members?

And thus a black family is housed with a chimp, living in an decrepit, ancient mansion turned ape research institute, which immediately leads the reader to wonder about the (possible) racial implications of this experiment and its parameters. As the story unspools itself, it becomes clear that race certainly plays a role in this project, and the institution sponsoring it has a long and sordid racist history. But even as this history grinds itself into the reader's consciousness, the story of the Freeman family itself lopes along, pulling you forward in a mesmerizing sort of way. Eventually, of course, the two stories collide, coming together indisputably at a Thanksgiving dinner, and then they clatter along together in a noisy, clashing kind of rush until the denouement arrives in all of its strangeness and unexpected brilliance.

This book is chock full of well-established and dysfunctional characters (good lady Julia turns out to be delightfully unhinged), complicated relationships, and icebergs of conversations chilly, beautiful, dangerous, with so much lurking beneath the surface. It's a book about love, language - and the limits of them both. Highly recommended!