:00:00. > :00:07.be back here in time for Christmas. More on our top stories at eight.
:00:08. > :00:12.Now, meet the author. Karen Joy Fowler is an American
:00:13. > :00:17.writer known for her novel about Jane Austin. Now she has written
:00:18. > :00:23.this book. It is a cracking read, her sixth novel. It poses a problem
:00:24. > :00:27.for reviewers and interviewers. On page 77, there is an unexpected plot
:00:28. > :00:31.twist. Without revealing what it is, it is almost impossible to
:00:32. > :00:33.discuss the book intelligently. So, if you don't want to know what
:00:34. > :00:57.happens, look away now! Anybody who has read the publicity
:00:58. > :01:03.for this book will know there is a big twist, an important twist, on
:01:04. > :01:07.page 77. It is difficult to discuss the book in an interesting way
:01:08. > :01:11.without revealing what it is, a spoiler. Does it worry you that some
:01:12. > :01:18.people might be upset that they come to the book knowing what the twist
:01:19. > :01:21.is? I have made my peace with it. When I wrote the book, I did imagine
:01:22. > :01:29.that the reader would pick it up cold. Hopefully they would be
:01:30. > :01:35.surprised by what is revealed. But when I turned the book in, it was
:01:36. > :01:38.clear I hadn't given a great deal of thought to have the marketing
:01:39. > :01:46.department would market the book. They were not able to tell anybody
:01:47. > :01:51.what it was about. Worst of all, how would I talk about the book if I was
:01:52. > :01:56.not able to tell anybody what it was about? I read review sometimes that
:01:57. > :02:01.a definite anybody spoil the book for you by telling you. Then I think
:02:02. > :02:06.how sad it would be if I am the person who spoils the book. But it
:02:07. > :02:15.is difficult to talk about. Absolutely. So let's confess.
:02:16. > :02:19.Rosemary, your narrator, is a student. She has a sister who
:02:20. > :02:27.disappeared under mysterious circumstances, we gather. Pay 77, we
:02:28. > :02:34.learned that she was a chimpanzee. Where did the idea come from? It
:02:35. > :02:46.came from a natural experiment done in the 1930s by psychologists. A
:02:47. > :02:52.psychologist, for a period of time, he sum of ten years he raised a baby
:02:53. > :02:57.chimp with his infant son. -- he simultaneously raised. It was a
:02:58. > :03:04.study of language acquisition, primarily, but also to find out what
:03:05. > :03:12.the capabilities... A compere and a contrast. If the upbringing to
:03:13. > :03:19.standardise and they spent a lot of time together. The experiment was
:03:20. > :03:25.not a stand-alone. It was repeated. There was a chimp in the 1960s.
:03:26. > :03:29.There were number of chimps who were raised. Fans there were children in
:03:30. > :03:35.the house. But the Kellogg experiment is the only one I am
:03:36. > :03:46.aware of where they tried to raise them simultaneously. Another one
:03:47. > :03:52.that was talked about a lot involved a chimp called name. In the early
:03:53. > :04:00.stages, she was put up alongside a large family of children. Let's see
:04:01. > :04:07.a clip. I had a faith that he would learn science. We had to wait and
:04:08. > :04:17.see. How do they start teaching the trial to sign? That looks idyllic.
:04:18. > :04:21.But it didn't end happily. These stale -- stories rarely end happily
:04:22. > :04:27.for the chimpanzee. As I have found out, they rarely end happily for the
:04:28. > :04:32.Child. That is what you bring to this. You see it from the child's
:04:33. > :04:36.perspective. When I began the research for this book, and as you
:04:37. > :04:39.said, there are number of cases where Jews were home raised and the
:04:40. > :04:44.number of books have been written about those experiments. -- where
:04:45. > :04:52.chimpanzees were home raised. I could find out a lot about the
:04:53. > :04:56.chimpanzees but almost nothing about the children. That was what I was
:04:57. > :05:00.focused on. One of the interesting things that has happened to me since
:05:01. > :05:05.the book came out is that children who were in these households have
:05:06. > :05:09.begun to contact me. The information I could not get before I wrote the
:05:10. > :05:15.book which would have been so useful, I am getting now! How
:05:16. > :05:22.accurate was your imagination, then, in thinking up rosemary and
:05:23. > :05:39.her predicament? I think I did pretty well. Not entirely, and it
:05:40. > :05:44.certainly vary from case to case. The problem is, you have to remove
:05:45. > :05:51.the chimps. They grow and they are quite strong and dangerous. To give
:05:52. > :05:55.anybody the benefit of the doubt, when the experiments began, I don't
:05:56. > :05:59.think that was understood. The people who took the chimps into
:06:00. > :06:06.their house for they were making a lifelong commitment. -- thought. We
:06:07. > :06:11.now know that was not possible. What happened to the chimps afterwards is
:06:12. > :06:19.that they often end up in experimental facilities. A strong
:06:20. > :06:28.theme of the book is what I think you would say are the evils of
:06:29. > :06:38.animal experimentation. Yes, I guess. I certainly see a lot of
:06:39. > :06:42.damage and unhappiness created. I would also say, however, that I feel
:06:43. > :06:47.that our attitudes towards animals and our understanding of animal
:06:48. > :06:54.cognition has changed and is in the process of changing. A lot of those
:06:55. > :07:01.experiments have resulted in that. Hopefully, good has come as well.
:07:02. > :07:06.You are the daughter of a psychologist. I am. Your central
:07:07. > :07:11.character is also. Psychologists don't come out of this world. One of
:07:12. > :07:16.the themes is the shortcomings of psychological theories, whether they
:07:17. > :07:20.are dreamt up from looking at animals or human beings. They are
:07:21. > :07:27.always overturned. Really, we know next to nothing about ourselves.
:07:28. > :07:31.Isn't that amazing! We have been studying ourselves all these years.
:07:32. > :07:44.That is when novelists come in. Thank you. Thank you.
:07:45. > :07:45.Time now for a look at the weather. Here is John