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Captivity

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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 University 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 because 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]

"For the most part, nonhuman primates are research subjects because they are so similar to humans, and the principal reason for this similarity is simple: humans *are* primates. Current ideas are that the first primates appeared more than 60 million years ago. In contrast, the common ancestor of humans and African apes lived only about 5-8 million years ago; so, for more than 50 million years, humans and the African apes have shared primate ancestry. Shared ancestry is a major reason why human and nonhuman primates have many characteristics in common -- tool use, long-lasting social relationships, and complex communication systems. By learning about nonhuman primates we may come to learn more about ourselves." American Society of Primatologists

"Captivity is the state of being confined to a space from which it is difficult or impossible to escape" Wikipedia. Debbie Lee Wesselmann has written a provocative novel that begins to unlock the secrets of and enhance the human condition. By understanding the Chimpanzee, the nonhuman, of our own kind we are on the way to learning about ourselves. Why is it that we keep our beloved kind behind cages? What is it about our thinking and behavior that thinks keeping primates locked up is the safest aspect of our society?

Dana Armstrong is the Director of a Chimpanzee Sanctuary in South Carolina. She has a familial history of living with a chimp as a child. And just as suddenly as Annie was brought into her life, Annie was removed. Dana has searched her entire life for Annie and in doing so found her avocation as a primatologist. She is teaching rescued chimps to live with one another and is able to study their behaviors. At some point someone has sabotaged her sanctuary and has released the chimps. This is not only dangerous for the chimps but for the society. Some of the chimps carry diseases from their medical captivity. Dana must find the perpetrator and fight to keep her sanctuary open. The mystery deepens once we begin to delve into Dana's life, and the people she loves, lives and works with are opened for inspection. Dana Armstrong and her story are but just an acorn in the deep forest of the primate world. Debbie Wesselmann has opened a page for us to peer into and learn about the wonder of primates.

Monkeys, chimps and apes are not meant to be pets. They are intelligent, autonomous, thinking, feeling beings that do not belong in cages and strongly resist captivity. There are many primate sanctuaries in the United States and one of their goals is to promote research and understanding of primates. The New England Primate Sanctuary in Winthrop, Ma tells us that "There are few data available regarding the number of captive primates in the US. Here's what we do know about the numbers imported into the US annually: 164,138¹ primates were imported into the United States between 1995 and 2005. The most common destination is research. This statistic reflects imports only and does not represent the numbers bred in the US for research, trade, zoo exhibits and entertainment." The delicate balance of nature depends upon the survival of diverse plants and animals. We are part of this natural cycle, and it is up to us to assist the delicate balance. Annie, the beloved chimp of Dana and her Sanctuary friend's, Benji, Kitabu, Barfu, Lesbina and Sifongo, are a sign of our humanity and how we treat our own.

Kudos to Debbie Lee Wesselmann for this captivating novel. It was a novel difficult to put down, and at the same time so stimulating I had to know more. I have become a member of the New England Sanctuary and hope to visit my friends soon. Wesselmann's love of the written word is very evident in her savvy and precise writing. I was struck that Debbie Wesselmann wants to leave us all with an intelligent insight into the world of our nonhuman counterparts.

Highly Recommended. prisrob 02-01-08

Biography - Wesselmann, Debbie Lee (1959-): An article from: Contemporary Authors

Trutor and the Balloonist

The Earth and the Sky: Stories

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.

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]

Only if we care will we help. Only if we help shall they be saved."
(Jane Goodall)

Dana and Annie were childhood buddies. They shared their daily lives playing, teasing, learning to communicate and, for a while, growing up together. Zack, Dana's younger brother often participated in the games and, in some way, competed with Dana for Annie's attention. The development of the youngsters was part of a research project, studied and captured on film. One day, however, this playful life ended and Annie was taken away after seriously biting Dana's hand. The hand never fully recovered, nor did Dana or Zack - from the loss of Annie. Annie was a chimpanzee. From a brief note on an actual case, Debbie Lee Wessselmann has imagined the captivating and touching story of Dana Armstrong, a primatologist who maintained since childhood days her dedication, love actually, for chimpanzees.

Dana is the director of a sanctuary for chimps, rescued over the years from various science laboratories, and resettled here after the inhumane treatment of primates was abandoned following increasing public condemnation. In the protective reserve in South Carolina Armstrong, assisted by her number two - Mary - and students and interns, has created an environment for the animals that aims to be as close to their natural habitat as possible. They live in groups, each led by an alpha male, in large enclosures, where they can roam and interact as they would in Africa. New arrivals, often physically and psychologically scarred, are first kept apart and slowly familiarized with life among other chimps. Wesselmann skilfully depicts the important trust-building interaction between humans and animals. Dana's experience with and fond memories of Annie have influenced her scientific approach, emphasizing discrete observation with minimal human interference as soon as the chimps can fend for themselves. Yet, on an emotional level, this approach brings challenges for Dana. While using her unique familiarity and communication skills with the animals, she needs to encourage their independence from human "handlers". For these and other reasons, the sanctuary and Dana have enemies: animal rights activists, colleagues with competing approaches in the University to which the sanctuary is attached, and local people who have little knowledge of what is going on behind the high fences. One morning Dana finds the doors of the holding cages and the fences open, papers and files in her office in disarray and chimpanzees roaming in the woods and areas nearby... Capturing all the animals is only the first challenge. Finding the culprit, attempting to reassure her superiors, funders, activists, and to educate the general public is quite another. In the midst of this crisis, her brother reappears in her life and demands attention. The crises multiply ... requiring cool heads. Is Dana too emotionally involved to take the tough decisions that are expected from her?

Wesselmann's ability to create realistic and lively characters, demonstrated already in her earlier novel "Trutor & the Balloonist", gives this story depth and complexity. Numerous twists and turns keep the reader intrigued as the critical events unfold. The human interest story is enriched by the perceptive portrayal of the chimps, each memorable in his or her individuality. The team's and, in particular, Dana's non-verbal communication with them, is beautifully captured, illustrating the author's in-depth research into primate behaviour and human-animal interaction. Through the author's sensitive narrative, the reader is closely following the heroine's emotional turmoil as well as her efforts to maintain the calm needed as she interact with animals, colleagues, competitor's and a curious journalist. It is one of those books one doesn't want to end when it does. This reader, for one, hopes that the protagonist, and the author, have their wish fulfilled and visit chimpanzees in their natural African habitat. [Friederike Knabe]

"Born free, as free as the wind blows
As free as the grass grows
Born free to follow your heart"

(Lyrics from "Born Free" by John Barry)

But what if you weren't born free?

The latest novel by Debbie Lee Wesselmann takes us into the world of chimpanzees living in captivity, but don't think for a moment that this is either a dry-as dust scientific lecture or a gut wrenching plea for animal rights. The well-balanced story unfolds through the eyes of Dana Armstrong, a primatologist with a difference, who runs a chimpanzee sanctuary in South Carolina.

Dana is different because she and her younger brother Zack were raised with a chimpanzee named Annie as a sister, their lives recorded on film and studied as a part of a psychology experiment conducted by her father on his own family back in the `70s. Events from the past continue to haunt both Dana and Zack, each sibling reacting differently to the aborted experiment and their subsequent life experiences.

Now an adult, Dana has to deal with her inner conflicts. Her father's experiment taught her to treat chimpanzees as humans, using sign language and sharing the same living spaces, but her work at the sanctuary focuses on rescuing captive chimps, especially from laboratories, and reintegrating them with their own kind as far as possible.

The work of the sanctuary is supported by very few people, and misunderstood by most, and when someone opens the cages and releases a potentially dangerous group of chimpanzees, Dana has her hands full trying to keep the sanctuary from going under.

This is a well researched novel, with excellent character development, and believe me, at certain points of the story you are going to want to inflict pain on some of the (human) characters. It is a work of fiction, based on fact, and will have you torn between wanting to read it as quickly as possible and not wanting it to end. Highly recommended.



Amanda Richards, December 2, 2007

For another excellent book by this author see Trutor & the Balloonist

At the South Carolina Primate Project, chimpanzees who were cruelly used in medical experiments or housed in substandard zoos are given a new life in a safe environment. As the story opens, the facility has been vandalized and chimps have been let loose. Director Dana Armstrong must find who was behind this sabotage while she deals with her wayward brother Zack, an attractive journalist named Sam, and her own troubled past.

The main character, Dana, is very believable. She has her share of problems, both professional and personal. She has to please her donors and placate her neighbors, her druggie brother takes advantage of her, and she has no social life at all. I wanted to be Dana when she cuddled with the chimps, but not when she realized she was very much alone.

The work of primatologists like Dana is fascinating to me and the suffering of animals in medical laboratories is heartbreaking. This part of the story is told with frightening realism that had me holding my breath from the tension. We also get a sobering look at drug addiction as well as a sweet romance. All the parts of the book are held together by Annie, the beloved chimp who was raised in Dana's home, and whose memory haunts Dana to this day.

I really enjoyed reading "Captivity" and heartily recommend it. It's a compassionate look at chimp rehabilitation with fascinating characters you'll love and hate.

Recently, the US Congress endowed retirement homes for chimps used in medical laboratory experiments. The facility in Shreveport, LA offers playtime and even TV--not surprising since these animals' contact was with researchers, their favorite show is "General Hospital." The reason for this endowment--we have come to realize how human chimps are and cannot simply euthanize them like a dog or a cat.

The South Carolina Primate Project is one such institution. Their primate residents are refugees from medical labs and roadside zoos. The chimps come from a wide variety of different backgrounds--some were born and bred in captivity, some captured in the wild. Some are loving and gentle, and others like "Benji" have been so brutally treated, they require sedation for a human to even treat a wound.

Dr. Dana Armstrong presides over this precariously funded project. She's a natural for the job, since her family was one of the first to have a chimp member. Her psychologist father, Dr. Reginald Armstrong, was one of the University of Oklahoma professors who adopted a chimpanzee and took the primate in as a family member. The Armstrong family's interactions with Annie were videotaped and shown all over the world. To this day, the Armstrong children are still haunted by their 'sister' and wonder what happened to Annie when the funding for their project ran out.

"Captivity" opens with a crisis at the sanctuary. Someone's broken in and set the chimps free. Benji, one of the HIV-positive chimps is loose. He's their most dangerous resident, having suffered serious abuse from a prior roadside zoo owner. Even the familiar handlers approach Benji with extreme care. If he bites or harms someone from nearby Harris, SC, it's conceivable he could infect them with HIV.

The break-in exacerbates a problem brewing for some time prior. A former colleague of Dana's father has been spreading rumors about the SCPP for some time. Now, he's openly saying that Dana's an unfit caretaker for the chimps and is bidding to become the next SCPP director. Add to that, a journalist has come to town and is asking Dana about Annie, and Dana's younger brother, Zack's come to visit as well.

Debbie Wesselmann deftly teaches us about the trials and tribulations of university funding and heading a controversial project in the Deep South. The treats the chimpanzee issues with an even-handed honesty and compassion. "Captivity's" tension carries strongly to the end. Like the best of stories, we've left with a satisfactory and reasonable conclusion, but questions of our own to ask.

I'd recommend "Captivity" to anyone who's interested in animal stories and seeks an understanding of human-animal interaction. While the book has some mature themes, it's suitable for young adult readers past 9th grade and would be an excellent read for students in that age group interested in zoology or veterinary science.

"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

Captivity keeps the reader completely engaged throughout. The author shows how human chimps are, and develops them as whole beings with individual personalities. You will find many instances where humans and chimps act alike to achieve their similar goals and fulfill their needs. I found myself as interested in the drama of the chimp societies (at the sanctuary) as those of the human characters in the story.

This is a great book, it pulls you in from many directions. Highly recommended.