Dawn Prince-Hughes: Songs of the Gorilla Nation

Reviewed by JANET MCALLISTER

The first and best friends I ever had," writes Dawn Prince-Hughes in the introduction to her astonishing memoir, "[were] a family of captive gorillas, people of an ancient nation."

Afflicted with undiagnosed Asperger's syndrome — a high-functioning form of autism — Prince-Hughes had never connected closely with her own species, even as an adult. Unable to cope socially, shunned and depressed, she was homeless for several years, then worked as a stripper. To her, humans were "chaotic knots of random actions" whose facial expressions she couldn't read and whose reactions she could never predict.

But then, studying gorillas at the zoo — animals she found to be "subtle and unthreatening" and therefore felt comfortable with — finally helped her to understand her own kind.

Watching the gorillas as they laughed and chased each other in a play-fight for instance, she found an explanation for humour: "A 'relief response' to something that scares you but doesn't end up hurting or killing you." Most "normal" people aren't even aware of hidden motivations like this one, but because she has had to learn them formally, Prince-Hughes can reveal them as an adult language learner can explain grammar rules that native speakers follow automatically.

By the end of the book, Prince-Hughes has a PhD, a job and enjoys a stable family life with her female partner and their son. It's classic triumph-over-adversity story, a tale of redemption and transformation. What makes it all the more extraordinary is that the story doesn't hold a "cure".

"I will always be autistic," says Prince-Hughes. "My social awkwardness, though controlled, will always make interaction difficult for me." Yet she stresses that she sees a beauty as well as a darkness to autism; her observations of the gorillas for her thesis were unusually meticulous because of the autistic way she approaches her work.

Personal contact may be awkward, but Prince-Hughes' rhythmic prose is a pleasure to read. And if some details — such as the passage of time and the point of view of others — are left out, their absence is made up for by her creative presentation of imaginative ways of seeing the world.

Visiting the gorillas after a long absence, she says: "To them, I had never been away because I had really been there once. Time ... to the gorillas ... is about being together, not about being apart."

This type of anthropomorphism may seem slightly far-fetched, but who's to say? The connection Prince-Hughes felt with the gorillas was genuine and powerful enough to be life-changing.

* Addenda, $39.95