I wrote a book with someone I’ve never met

[Speakinginsign]

and today we meet for the first time.
Incredibly nervous!

I saw him in a film. He is in the US. Over lockdown, I joined Instagram and found him. Told him I teach from his film. He kindly offered my students an online Q&A session. He asked for a 1:1 meeting. He said he was impressed by my questions & that I was the person he had been waiting for over 30 years to write his story.

Wrote book in 1 year using Instagram video calls. I submitted it to a publisher after 6 months & they offered a contract.

That was just over a year ago. I left my relationship, set up my study, and traversed time zones most nights. Now we have a book out on Amazon, more work on the way, a launch party this week, and have still never met!

He arrives this morning wife just wife. Just an hour or so later we are being interviewed on local radio.

EEEEEKKKKKK!!!!

One minute I was watching his film, and the next…

this is so exciting for you and has also highlighted the story of Nim to me. I have disappeared down a rabbit hole reading about it. would love to know what you have written as I will be researching about this subject in my spare time now.

This sounds amazing, OP! Well done! Another one here wanting to know the actual book!

For someone promoting a book, you are curiously reticent about the title! I covered Project Nim at university (linguistics grad) and I am genuinely interested in reading your take on it.

Thank you, everyone! I was a bit sensitive about looking like I’m trying to sell it, but how about this - don’t buy it, your library is likely to stock it. Let’s give libraries some action, hopefully we can save those, too.

The book is called
“Primatology, Ethics & Trauma”.

If you Google it, or look it up on Amazon, there is only 1 book on pre-sale with that title.

I didn’t realise there would be people on here who would be interested in the subject matter! Why didn’t I think of this?! I would be delighted to answer any related questions. It has been an enormous learning curve to reopen some of those studies and reconsider the data from the perspective of trauma.

I wasn’t promoting the book - maybe that’s why I appeared reticent. Rather, I wanted to share my anxiety about meeting him. Luckily seems to have worked out so far. It has been a crazy year! 🤣

This is fabulous! Well done, OP.

I saw the documentary about Project Nim and was in floods of tears for hours after. Such a sad story, up until that final chapter.

Totally get where you're coming from, OP, and I will look up the book. Looks very interesting - it's so great that Nim is still generating new insights.

Wow, well done! Brilliant. Very happy for you; will look up the book!

What an absolutely wonderful, hopeful story of how life has its twists and turns.

Love it and wish you all the luck in the world 😀

OP this is just lovely!! Congratulations and wishing you all the best!! Thank you for sharing your news! It's made me smile x

Thank you so much for all your lovely words & encouragement!

Bob (I can use his name now!) is an astounding human being. The film shows about 10% of what he did. He rescued Nim from that medical lab, found him safety, and was a loyal & committed friend.

I spoke to others from the film: the director, other carers, also the chief vet’s wife - sadly he died suddenly. He had secretly rescued nearly 200 primates out of the lab.

Bob nearly died 3 years ago. He had a liver transplant. Every day is a gift. He is as high as a kite right now, in Oslo following his favourite country singer, Billy Strings on tour. You can’t make this up, can you?!

I am so excited that it was the spirit of Nim that brought us together to be continuing this story.

You have all been so lovely listening to me!

I've come across many musical collaborations where the two singers did not meet, even in pre-internet days. The OPs book is the first one so written though and a lovely thing.

Thank you for posting this, what a fascinating story! Best wishes for book 2.

Amazing achievement. Well done you 😊

Thanks so much for all your good wishes!
Yes, @balalake it has been exactly like a musical collaboration. We keep saying that - he is a Grateful Dead fan which has an interesting psychology in itself!

it was very strange to go from a screen to a person. Even weirder than for Zoom meetings, because of the length of time we’d spent thinking, talking, even crying, together over the chimpanzee materials. I’ve watched him and Nim in clips over & over to reanalyse some of the interactions. Trying to keep up with Nim’s sign language was interesting!

Very interesting op, just make sure to change your user name once this thread is done because people people can ID you easily from this.

Yes, I will do that, thank you, @WhatNapkinRing I don’t post much, but it’s wise to double-check.

OMG, OP! I've found the book and read a bit about you in the author notes. Wow! What a smart, established, award winning and judging by this post, a lovely human you are!
Congratulations 👏 and well done 🙇‍♀️

You are very kind, @cranberrymilkshake 😌 Thank you for your kind words. I’ve got a bit of a story, too, as you can prob guess. Life has had its interesting twists and turns. 😀

I would love to hear that story! I'm sure it's super interesting.
Again, congratulations! Enjoy every minute of this incredible achievement

Congratulations and what an amazing story!

Project Nim is heartbreaking. Bob Ingersoll was Nim's only friend, wasn't he? What a godd, good man.

Interview with him here
m.youtube.com/watch?v=OKFJWQVcOFQ

See, this is what I love about Mumsnet!

He is a remarkable, courageous, and loyal man and I am so proud and honoured that he is now my friend. I can’t tell you how touched I was by Nim. I grew up as something of an outsider, too, so could empathise with his plight.

I learnt about the studies as an undergraduate student and they stayed with me. When the film came out, it was just a visual manifestation of what I already knew. However, I hadn’t appreciated how much more work Bob had done - not just Nim, but other chimpanzees.

Our book is about Washoe, a female chimpanzee with impoverished models of mothering & a resultant incapacity to mother her own infant (she killed him).

It was the spirit of Nim that brought us together. If I hadn’t watched that film, I would never have contacted Bob & and worked on exploring Nim’s & his trauma. I also interviewed various other carers of Nim. He had over 200 carers. Imagine having 200 attachment figures! Others did care - but it was hard to keep a lasting bond, especially after he was sold to the LEMSIP medical lab. I was also fortunate enough to ask Noam Chomsky what he thinks about Nim Chimpsky.

You can’t do this work without considering the bigger question of our place on this earth. If we are capable of treating sentient beings who share 98% of our DNA like this, what hope is there for how we treat each other?

If people are interested, two radio interviews we have given, are:

at about 3 hours in:
www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0ddpnrq

Last night, at 34:20:

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p075xyqt

Hope everyone doesn’t mind. I’m just resurrecting my old thread to think about the past few days.

My co-author came over again & we held signing events. We donated some of the proceeds of our first sales to Tiggywinkles, the wildlife animal hospital in Bucks. I used to see them on Blue Peter as a (traumatised) child.

Our book will go on sale in museums and sanctuaries. There has been television interest. We have been offered further book contracts. We’ve spoken to universities, sanctuaries, zoos, charities, environmental policy makers. Our book is being translated into other languages.

I can’t believe how this whole thing turned out. I saw a film on TV, it moved me & I contacted one of that film’s heroes. We now work together closely. He is a real gem, always working to make the world better. I’m overwhelmed by it all.

If you read this, please consider visiting sanctuaries or animal hospitals this summer. Our planet is in a really bad place right now. We need more of this work for our kids to have a decent future. Wahhhh. Sorry if this sounds indulgent, I need to share some of this enormous experience with someone.