Bonobo Handshake: A Memoir of Love and Adventure in the Congo Book

A young woman follows her fiancé to war-torn Congo to study extremely endangered bonobo apes-who teach her a new truth about love and belonging.

In 2005, Vanessa Woods accepted a marriage proposal from a man she barely knew and agreed to join him on a research trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country reeling from a brutal decade-long war that had claimed the lives of millions. Settling in at a bonobo sanctuary in Congo's capital, Vanessa and her fiancé entered the world of a rare ape with whom we share 98.7 percent of our DNA. She soon discovered that many of the inhabitants of the sanctuary-ape and human alike-are refugees from unspeakable violence, yet bonobos live in a peaceful society in which females are in charge, war is nonexistent, and sex is as common and friendly as a handshake.

A fascinating memoir of hope and adventure, Bonobo Handshake traces Vanessa's self-discovery as she finds herself falling deeply in love with her husband, the apes, and her new surroundings while probing life's greatest question: What ultimately makes us human? Courageous and extraordinary, this true story of revelation and transformation in a fragile corner of Africa is about looking past the differences between animals and ourselves, and finding in them the same extraordinary courage and will to survive. For Vanessa, it is about finding her own path as a writer and scientist, falling in love, and finding a home.

Publishers Weekly

Woods recounts her otherworldly experience of visiting a bonobo sanctuary in civil war torn Congo in 2005. Stepping into the sanctuary, where healing abounds and the matriarchal community of bonobos has much to teach their animal caretakers, Woods finds her life forever altered. Justine Eyre displays her wide-ranging vocal ability as she slips effortlessly into Woods’s Australian accent, while peppering the reading with pitch-perfect African and French portrayals. Eyre recreates the scenes like a visual artist, nuanced shifts in her voice as planned out as every stroke of a brush. It’s easy to get lost in the story and hard to bring oneself back from this idyll. A Gotham hardcover (Reviews, Mar. 8). (May)