Songs of the Gorilla Nation: My Journey Through Autism (Paperback)

~ Dawn Prince-Hughes Ph.D. (Author) "I was standing at the gate of the zoo, looking up at the same gate I walked out of four years before..." (more)
Key Phrases: gorilla nation, autistic people, captive gorillas, Asperger's Syndrome, Jane Goodall, United States (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this affecting, thoughtful memoir, Prince-Hughes explores how working with gorillas helped her escape the feelings of isolation she encountered as a sufferer of Asperger's syndrome, a form of autism characterized by difficulties processing stimuli, sensory sensitivity and social awkwardness. Her description of the course of her condition is both delightfully quixotic and terribly sad. Prince-Hughes's addictions to the smells of purple irises and tin Band-Aid boxes seem harmless enough, but her inability to emotionally connect to other people has terrible consequences. In high school, she is beaten and harshly abused. Trying to cope, she develops a drinking problem, spends months homeless and takes a job as a strip club dancer to make ends meet. A lifeline comes after a trip to the zoo, where the author discovers gorillas and forms a bond with them that changes her life. These creatures see the world the same way Prince-Hughes does: "They didn't look at one another, and they did look at me, they looked at everything." She gets a low-level zoo job and decides to make a career out of studying gorillas. By quietly, calmly watching the gorillas interact, Prince-Hughes learns about emotions like love, anger, concern and humor-feelings she could never understand in the purely human world. The author's favorite gorilla, a 500-pounder named Congo, becomes more of a friend than a subject, at one point literally giving her a shoulder to cry on. Although Prince-Hughes goes on to earn a Ph.D. in anthropology, she still struggles with verbal and physical interactions. In print, however, she finds touching eloquence and clarity.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

This memoir tells how Prince-Hughes learned to manage her form of autism, Asperger's syndrome, by observing and interacting with gorillas. This "high-functioning" form of autism regularly goes unrecognized because sufferers are often gifted intellectually and learn numerous coping mechanisms. The author's accounts of her early childhood are intensely moving as she describes how she viewed her world and how she tried to deal with it. What makes this book unique is the author's discovery of the gorillas at Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo, and how she learned about personal relationships, the need for companionship, and the need for a group to belong to by watching them. Though she dropped out of school at 16, wanting to learn more about the gorillas helped her to find a focus and led to an eventual Ph.D. in anthropology. The reader will feel what the author is feeling, and her comparisons of herself with the gorillas she grew to love are fascinating. An excellent addition to any library's collection about autism, this will also resonate with all who understand the human-animal connection. Nancy Bent
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Three Rivers Press (March 22, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400082153
• ISBN-13: 978-1400082155
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #67,532 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What it's like to be a high-functioning autistic, October 9, 2005

By	Dennis Littrell (SoCal) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

This review is from: Songs of the Gorilla Nation: My Journey Through Autism (Hardcover)

This is a memoir about being autistic and learning to accept and even revel in the uniqueness of being autistic.

Autism, in a sense, is a different strategy. It may be, in its "milder" forms, as that experienced by Dawn Prince-Hughes, who writes so beautifully well, an attempt to adapt to an ancient environment in which social abilities are not as valuable as some other talents. Many autistics would be more at home in the jungle or in woodlands or on the savannas of Africa than non-autistic people. Their ability to concentrate and to sense things acutely would serve them well. And any lack in social skill would not matter.

At least that is my impression after reading this wonderful book by a woman who "went forward by going backwards"--backwards, that is, "into the most primal and ancient part of myself." She had this experience with her "first and best friends, a family of captive gorillas, people of an ancient nation."

On the other hand, the autistic spectrum of disorders may represent imperfect ways of dealing with the world and with others. Usually autistic people are at a disadvantage, especially socially and vocationally, because other people find their behavior inappropriate and unfeeling. Dawn's behavior seemed at times cold and withdrawn and without proper affect. She had to force herself to make eye contact with people and to remind herself to engage in the social niceties. The curious thing about this is that autistics may actually feel things more strongly than the rest of us. The lack of social grace that many autistics display does not mean they are incapable of feeling or that their feelings of love and empathy are less than that of "normal" people. Clearly we can see in this memoir that Dawn has always been a deeply caring person with a great capacity for love.

The problem for some autistics is that they feel things too deeply. Many autistics have senses that are so acute that everyday interactions with other people overwhelm them emotionally. Satchel Paige famously said that "the social ramble ain't restful." He was, in understatement, expressing what Dawn has always felt.

As a child Dawn could repeat conversations verbatim and had a "vast repertoire of commercial jingles" which she would sing. She loved repetition and symmetry, and later as an adult learned from her gorilla friends "the value and beauty of ritual."

She had sensory addictions, as she calls them, to various sights and sounds and tactile sensations. She craved salt and would eat it straight from the shaker; and she would suck on burnt matchheads and "craved Alka-Seltzer for its taste and feel." She loved to smell her grandparents' car and her grandmother's purse. She felt a sense of calm and security in the presence of familiar things. Away from the familiar, she became frightened and insecure. She liked to hide in caves and other places away from people and from the "chaos of noise" all about her.

After a horrendous childhood in which she was abused by peers at school, and an adolescence and young womanhood in which she was often homeless and terribly alone, she found a sense of love and belonging by watching and interacting with gorillas at the zoo. She herself became a gorilla in part, and refers to her kin throughout the book as "people." This of course is part of the political and moral message of the book: the great apes are "people," or at least they should be treated as people and not as inferior animals to be enslaved and experimented upon.

Prince-Hughes's experience with the gentle and peaceful gorillas marked the beginning of her transformation from hopeless misfit to instructor at Western Washington University with a PhD in anthropology. It also helped that she came to understand that she is autistic, and came to accept that she is different from other people. From that understanding she came to realize that she had to consciously make adaptations to better fit in with others, and to make allowances for what they expected and considered proper even though for Dawn some of their expectations were strange and needless.

This is a fascinating, honest, and deeply revealing memoir about what it is like to be autistic.

27 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars captivating, March 19, 2004

By	L. Modderman "Loes Modderman" (Holland) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Songs of the Gorilla Nation: My Journey Through Autism (Hardcover)

This book is fascinating, moving and very informative for anybody who is interested in autism and in animals. Since I am both, I enjoyed it immensely. It's comparable with Temple Grandin's 'Thinking in Pictures' with whom Dawn Prince-Hughes shares many deep insights and experiences. She writes beautifully, and her experiences are worth contemplating because they are far reaching and important. Reading this book strengthened my conviction that many people with autism have insights that could benefit us all, and deserve to be listened to carefully, and with great respect. This book is a must for everybody remotely interested in autism or primates, but I should wish it to reach as many readers, especially anthropologists! as possible.

22 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars passionate, moving, sad, and uplifting, July 22, 2004

By	proreader "proreader" (New York City) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Songs of the Gorilla Nation: My Journey Through Autism (Hardcover)

There is a quote from George Eliot's Middlemarch, which for me really sums up this book: "If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence." When I read that, I realized that is how Dawn Prince Hughes has lived her entire life. Reading this book shows you what it is like to live with autism, Asperger's Syndrome in particular, and tells the story of how Dawn learned to cope, and even be happy, by observing a family of gorillas. If you are interested in the way the human brain works, and in the relationships between humans and animals, and about love and how it can save us all, you will truly love this book. To top it all off, Prince Hughes writes like a poet, and the immediacy of her prose makes reading this book a truly unique and special experience. Can't recommend this highly enough.