Reviews roll in of Asheville-area resident Gruen’s latest, ‘Ape House

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

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Here’s a sampling of reviews of Sara Gruen’s latest novel, Ape House. Gruen gave a reading and book signing on Saturday at Malaprop’s. Here we go:

From Salon.com:

No matter if you got the right answer. (It’s e.) After reading Sara Gruen’s captivating fourth novel, “Ape House,” you’ll not only know about bonobos in general, you’ll also know half a dozen of these great apes as characters with personalities as distinct as fingerprints. Gruen’s gift for reaching across the species divide is as evident in “Ape House” as it was in her mega-selling“Water for Elephants,” which featured Rosie, the Depression-era circus elephant. Not since Jack London explored the boundaries between the domesticated dog and the wolf in “The Call of the Wild” has a writer dramatized the bonds between humans and our fellow creatures with such empathy.

From the L.A. Times:

In other hands, this could have been an interesting point of departure for an examination of pop culture and a satire of reality television (OK, it’s already self-satirizing, but still). Gruen’s aim here, though, is to draw attention to the bonobos and to the cruelties inflicted on animals in the name of science, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. The bonobos are intriguing animals, and efforts to save them in the wilds of the Congo are to be commended. But Gruen’s lack of subtlety isn’t. It’s hard to escape the sense that we’re being lectured to.

From the Washington Post:

Instead, the story insists on pursuing a couple of limp romantic crises, one about John and his depressed wife; the other involving Dr. Duncan and her fiance, who may be monkeying around with the wrong people. No opportunity for lachrymose melodrama is passed by: Even the African violets die a terrible death. The bonobos make a few more tantalizing appearances, but we remain caged in John’s and Dr. Duncan’s mopey stories while all the interesting action seems to be happening somewhere else.

Particularly in a book inspired by the miracle of language, it’s disappointing to see such reliance on cliches, as though the novel drove to the Costco Phrase Store and loaded up with off-the-shelf words. John “found the atmosphere intoxicating,” or “lied copiously and through his teeth,” or “wanted to shrink into the earth.” Seeing the damage done to the lab was “like taking a cannonball to the gut. . . . He knew he should try to collect himself, but at this point he had nothing to lose.” Maybe these complaints sound like English-teacher pedantry, but the cumulative effect of such stylistic sloth is deadening.

The 800-pound gorilla in the room is why someone at Gruen’s new publishing house didn’t give her the benefit of a good edit. Even if the silly story and the trite characters couldn’t be saved, why leave these pages pocked with such lines? The answer, I can only assume, has something to do with the more than $5 million that a division of Random House reportedly paid to lure Gruen away from Algonquin, her small North Carolina publisher. That cynical process has misserved a beloved writer and her elephantine fan base. If there were any justice in publishing, Spiegel & Grau would be heckled by People for the Ethical Treatment of Authors.