We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

You can’t write a review of this book without spoiling it for others. The reason is that Karen Fowler ingeniously hides a key plot point for the first fourth of the novel; namely, the heroine’s sister is a chimpanzee. The heroine of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves is Rosemary, a girl who grows up with a chimpanzee. The novel is about Rosemary’s growth in personal and moral awareness. Gradually—in a non-linear manner that is also the author’s style—Rosemary comes to terms with her curious family, including her desolate mother, drunk-yet-brilliant father, animal-rights-activist brother, and loved-but-abandoned simian sister. More importantly, Rosemary realizes her identity and moral responsibility as a member of this family.

What I liked about this book is that it avoided becoming an ode to animal rights and equality. Although Fowler prominently features simian studies and animal aptitude tests, she nonetheless shows a healthy agnosticism as to whether animals are truly equal to humans. She acknowledges the complexity of the moral questions surrounding animal research. Most importantly, Fowler remains focused on her heroine. Perhaps Fowler intended this book as a portrayal of a brutal world in which humans cannot acknowledge that they differ from simians not in essence but only in their degree of capability. But I didn’t take it that way. I took it as an enjoyable, though sad, tale of a girl who grew up with a chimpanzee for a sister.