The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Beach: Helper monkeys, right to die big issues in Weber novel
When Katharine Weber was shopping around her sixth novel, “Still Life With Monkey,” she heard that the marketing department people of some large publishing houses were asking: “Who would want to read a novel about a monkey and a quadriplegic?”
“They have now been proven wrong by rave reviews,” Weber said as we sat at Willoughby’s Coffee Shop on Grove Street in New Haven on a recent afternoon.
The publisher that took on her novel, Paul Dry Books of Philadelphia, is not a big player in the publishing world. But New York Times reviewer Lucy Scholes called the book “profoundly humane even while it’s asking the most difficult questions.” And author Ann Packer called it “a rich and compelling meditation on the question of what makes life worth living.”
It’s true, as the marketing people fretted, that the book’s subject matter is challenging. The main character is Duncan Wheeler, an architect who is enjoying life with his wife, Laura, in their home in New Haven’s East Rock neighborhood. But then the station wagon he is driving — on the “Q Bridge” — slams into a Jersey barrier and he sustains the injuries that render him quadriplegic. Todd Walker, his friend sitting next to him, dies in the crash.
Wheeler, knowing he will be
confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life, wonders whether he wants to go on living. He sees every day as “a broken series of unsuccessful gestures.”
However, his wife, deeply concerned her husband is so depressed that he has lost the will to live, brings into their home a trained helper monkey: a capuchin named Ottoline.
The monkey’s job is to assist Wheeler with basic tasks such as turning the pages of a book, switching on a light or fetching his glasses.
Wheeler initially resists the idea of having a helper monkey around. But gradually, he and his wife develop a deep affection for Ottoline. She becomes a member of their family. (They have no children.)
And yet, it’s not enough. After months of living with Ottoline — spoiler alert! — Wheeler concludes that his life simply is not worth living. During weeks of careful planning, he assembles the necessary materials to kill himself. His planning and determination allow him, without Ottoline’s participation, to end his life.
Although this novel is a work of fiction, Weber spent time with two real-life quadriplegics to help her understand what their daily lives are like and the emotions they experience. She dedicated her book to them: Andrew Zerman, whom Weber knew in high school on Long Island; and Kent Converse of Massachusetts. The book’s dedication also includes Converse’s wife, Nancy Converse, and their helper monkey, Farah (named after Farrah Fawcett).
Also, there really are helper monkeys for quadriplegics. They are raised and trained at “Monkey College” by Helping Hands, a nonprofit organization that has operated in Boston since 1979. Helping Hands has placed more than 150 monkeys, at no cost, in the homes of adults with spinal cord injuries and other mobility impairments.
Did you know about these monkeys and this group? I sure didn’t until I read this captivating novel. Weber sees herself as “a good will ambassador” for Helping Hands and she is donating a percentage of the book’s sales to the group. She wants to spread the word about its efforts because she believes in the work and “the group is so little-known.”
Ah, but helper monkeys are controversial. Weber told me 14 states, including Connecticut, do not allow them. Why?
“They are not recognized (in those states) as assistance animals,” Weber said. “Connecticut is being pushed around by animal rights organizations, who have a moral objection to helper monkeys. They don’t approve of monkeys being trained to help people in wheelchairs.”
Weber noted the argument of the animal rights groups: “Capuchin monkeys are tribal. They live in treetops. They did not choose to live in a house, performing tasks for somebody in a wheelchair.”
Weber added another objection by these groups: helper monkeys have their canine and incisor teeth removed because if they bite somebody they could be seized by animal control workers and put to death.
But after spending many hours observing Farah interacting with the Converses in their home, Weber clearly believes in the worth of these arrangements. “Farah keeps them closer, helps define them as a couple.”
Although the Wheelers are not based on the Converses, nor is Duncan Wheeler based on Zerman, Weber benefited greatly from spending time with them, especially the Converses. She said it helped her understand the “nuances” of the relationships between the Converses and Farah. (Weber has tried to convince Zerman to take in a helper monkey but he has declined to do so.)
Weber also developed a good relationship with Farah. “When I walked into their home for the first time, Farah flung herself at me: ‘It’s you! Where have you been? I love you!’ But other times she’s indifferent to me because she’s distracted. Usually, she’ll put her arms around me, hug me and squeal.”
Weber said she is flattered that Farah likes her. “But she doesn’t respect me. She’ll take off my glasses and throw them across the room.”
Weber said the Converses and Zerman like the novel a lot and support it, including Wheeler’s right to decide to kill himself. “I think they felt it was a reasonable possibility for that character.”
This, too, has been controversial. In her Washington Post review of the book, author Karen Joy Fowler said the novel is “excellent” but “all but spoiled by its ending.” She said it showed a lack of imagination. “We’re given the same appalling conclusion we see so often in tales of disability.”
Weber said Fowler misunderstood, thinking the message was it’s OK for the disabled to kill themselves. Weber told me, “The issue of the novel is the right to die, the right to make that decision. It’s about whether the disabled have an equal right to make decisions about themselves, including the right to end their lives...Disabled people should have the same right to make that decision, whether or not they can move their hands.”
But Weber added: “Suicide is a terrible thing for the family and friends (of the person who chooses that route). I’m not an advocate for suicide. I am an advocate for the right to make some rational choices to end your life.”
She said of suicides, “Usually, it’s a terrible mistake; often, it’s not a rational choice. But it can be a rational choice.” She cited medical reasons, for example — “knowing you will be immobilized with a disease.”
Weber said Zerman and Converse, like virtually all quadriplegics, pondered suicide but “they moved past it.” She said Wheeler had “a failure of imagination to see other ways to move forward. It’s the same failure that (Tolstoy’s) Anna Karenina had at the train station.”
Weber spends part of her year at Ohio’s Kenyon College, where she is a writing professor. But she is a longtime Bethany resident, so can write knowledgeably about New Haven area sites. When I asked her about choosing that infamous bridge as the place where Wheeler has his horrific accident, she replied: “Haven’t we all been in horrible traffic because of an accident there? It seemed vivid and knowable.”