What readers think of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, plus links to write your own review.

What a remarkable book! This is a wildly original spin on that classic novel plot of being part of and then breaking away from a dysfunctional family.

Written by Karen Joy Fowler, this is the story of Rosemary Cooke, the younger of two children—or three children, depending on how you look at it. It's the mid-1970s. When Rosemary was one month old and her brother, Lowell, was six years old, their parents decided to raise a baby chimpanzee they named Fern as Rosemary's twin sister. Or something close to that. As a psychology professor and researcher of animal behavior at Indiana University, her father was quite literally bringing his work home and that included six graduate students who assisted with the research. Because of what their parents told them, both Lowell and Rosemary thought of Fern as their sister. They truly loved her. And one day when Rosemary was five years old, Fern disappeared. They were told she went to live on a farm. (Yeah, right.) And then they never talk about Fern again. What really happened to her? That is a central part of the story and how Lowell and Rosemary react to Fern's disappearance both immediately and years later—after all, she was their sister—is very different with long-lasting and difficult consequences for them both. And oh, the ending. It's perfect.

The book is creatively written. It begins in the middle of the story when Rosemary at age 22 is in her fifth year of college at the University of California, Davis. In these early chapters, we get the background on the family so when the story begins at the beginning—when Fern joined the family—we understand the family dynamics.

This is a story about family, memories, and the anguish of facing the truth. The colorful characters, unusual plot, and pitch-perfect writing combine to make this an impressive and intriguing novel.

Bonus No. 1: This is a literature geek's dream book with numerous literary references, including quotes that introduce new chapter from Franz Kafka's short story "A Report for an Academy" about an ape named Red Peter who has learned to act like he is human and gives a report to an academy about how he did this.

Bonus No. 2: If you love words, especially words that are new to you, you will enjoy reading this. I had to use the Kindle look-up feature a lot.

This was a very different type of novel for this author, a novel that was not easy to write because at any time it could have easily crossed over into the absurd and it did not. It was humorous at times but always at the core there was an element of seriousness.

This is a story that covers many complex issues, 1970's was a time of experimental animal psychology which of course led to many animal abuses and stories, that at times are very difficult to read. It is really too bad that in the book's synopsis it gives away so much because it was not until the second part of the book that the reader is made aware of exactly who this family was comprised of, a feat I found amazing. So this can be a condemnation of the animal experiments, a warning to us perhaps about overreaching, and at times it almost bordered on the preachy, but just when I thought that the author would pull back.

This is also a coming of age story. Rosemary now a young adult looking back at her childhood and childhood self, a story about the reliability of memory. Does one remember the event or just the retelling of the event? Also family, what does it mean to be a family and exactly what do we owe other family members?

Anyway one wants to read this, it is well done, interesting, and animal lovers will surely be appalled but maybe it is something we all need to think about. How much do we allow in the progress of the sciences?

“You learn as much from failure as from success, Dad always says. Though no one admires you for it”

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves is the eighth novel by prize-winning American author, Karen Joy Fowler. Rosemary Cooke’s sister Fern disappeared from her life when she was just five years old. When she was nearly twelve, her brother Lowell left. The absence of her two beloved siblings was never discussed at home.

From the perspective of a kindergarten teacher in her late thirties, Rosie tells the story of her unusual upbringing. She starts in the middle, during her time at UC Davis, because she had been told, often enough, by her psychologist father: “Skip the beginning; start in the middle”.

By this time, the once loquacious girl was almost taciturn. Throughout her childhood, members of her family advised “If you have three things to say, just tell the most important one”. Even more effective at reducing her chat was her brother’s later remonstration “If only you had, just for once, kept your goddamn mouth shut!” She still “thought as much as ever… Without the release of talking, these thoughts crowded my brain. The inside of my head turned clamorous and outlandish, like the Mos Eisley spaceport bar in Star Wars”

In the telling of the how and why her siblings are absent, Rosie delves into psychology experiments and primates and the unreliability of memories. And while a psychologist practicing on his family is probably de rigeur, today’s ethics committees would surely have vetoed what took place during Rosie’s childhood.

While the theme of love, of loss, and cruelty gives the story an undercurrent of sadness, Fowler includes plenty of humour, some of it quite black. She gives the reader a collection of quirky characters; her descriptions of faculty life in an Indiana college town in the late seventies and a Californian University town in the mid-nineties has a very genuine feel, no doubt as they draw on her own life experiences. Lost luggage, a French Revolution puppet and animal liberationists all feature. A clever, moving and thought-provoking read. 4.5 stars