We are all completely beside ourselves, by Joy Fowler

Reviewers have found it impossible to discuss this remarkable new novel without giving away the main device, so if you don’t want to know, stop here.  Two sisters are separated when they are five.  Sad in any event, but even more tragic when you learn that the sister who has disappeared is a chimpanzee.  She was being raised by a psychologist and his wife as a member of the family, and also as a scientific experiment.  She is the same age as their daughter.  Rosemary is the human, Fern the chimp.  Brother Lowell is older and when the novel opens, has been absent and estranged from the family for a decade or so.  His anger has turned him towards radical animal liberation.  Rosemary is a 22 year old college student, who hides the most interesting part of her past – her missing sister.  But growing up in her formative years with a sibling who was in some ways far ahead of her in development and in others backward, has definitely made Rosemary a misfit and a loner.  The book raises questions about what is family, what does it mean to be human, and in a non-preachy way, what are the ethical issues of animal/human interactions.  But mostly it is a funny, wise, and heartbreaking book.  320 pp.