Brave tale of saving chimpanzees

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The Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary

A True Story of Resilience and Recovery

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By Andrew Westoll

HarperCollins, 266 pages, $30

In order for a tale to be distinguished as a literary epic, it must contain certain key elements.

There must be a hero and a journey, and the hero must face down indisputable evil or horror and live to tell about it.

And there must be a reward, which takes the form of self-knowledge, or the founding of a kingdom, or a glimpse of God. Sometimes it's all three at once.

Is it possible, then, for an epic to be told about a chimpanzee sanctuary in rural Quebec and for the author to sport the nickname "Smoothie Boy" (in reference to the drink he is delegated to make for 13 primates who will reject it if it's too green)?

It's not that Canadian primatologist and journalist Andrew Westoll intentionally set out to frame his memoir of his year as a caregiver of the chimpanzees at director Gloria Grow's storied Fauna Sanctuary.

Rather, it is from within the stunning beauty of his narrative that the archetypes of genuine bravery, discovery, and transcendence slowly but surely come into view.

This is Westoll's second foray into non-fiction, and it is already generating much buzz in both the literary and primatology worlds. Even the most famous chimpanzee expert around, Jane Goodall, has blessed his work with a spectacular endorsement.

It is well deserved. Proving himself to be a brilliant biographer, Westoll gathers together and interprets all the forces that turned Grow, who started as a simple animal lover rescuing dogs from puppy mills, into Canada's most successful advocate for the liberation of chimpanzees from confinement in antiquated zoos, circuses and research labs.

What Westoll also sets out to discover is how Grow's words, "I want to build a chimpanzee sanctuary" -- uttered about 15 years ago -- set into motion the intricate architectural plans of the Fauna chimp-house and the suspenseful rescue operation of its future residents from a research laboratory in upstate New York.

As Westoll, who tells the story from his point of view in the first person, carefully contemplates what makes Grow tick, he also writes the life-stories of each of her chimps. With compassion and comic flair, he introduces us to the non-human primates who, he would say, are the real heroes of his tale.

Here, the form of the literary epic genuinely establishes itself. Because if a hero must face a truly horrific test of spirit and flesh, then emerging from the dark and secret world of a biomedical lab surely meets that qualification.

Westoll forces us to confront what those chimps endured and survived: we must read about difficult things in order to get any sense of the whole story and its profound meaning.

He manages to prepare us for the painful stuff by riveting us from the first page with his own awe-struck evaluation of the sanctuary's vast grounds, the strange and extraordinary edifice in which the chimps live, and the rules he must obey as he interacts with each of the animals (including Eeyore, the grouchy donkey, who lives in the barn).

Knowing that he's taking his readers on a difficult journey, Westoll worries at one point that the "truth will devour you." But, because the book is also so beautiful, we can respond with the other side of that possibility: that the truth can likewise set you free. It is perhaps the prerequisite for setting others free, too.

It's hard to put this biography down, as Westoll leads us deep into the wonders of Fauna Sanctuary, a 100-acre-former farm in the Monteregie region of Quebec, about 20 minutes from Montreal.

Here, he offers us the keys to the primate kingdom, to which we've always belonged and in which we can glimpse God in the face of a chimpanzee gratefully drinking a delicious purple smoothie.

Dana Medoro is an English professor at the University of Manitoba and a board member of the Winnipeg Humane Society.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition May 14, 2011 J10