Talk To Me by T. Coraghessan Boyle Review

Sam is a young chimp who’s been taught American Sign Language and uses it to talk to his handlers: Guy, a young professor, and his girlfriend/assistant, Aimee. But when funding for the chimp project runs out and the group is disbanded, what will happen to Sam?

I always check out whenever TC Boyle puts out a new book and, while I don’t always read them all all the way through, he tends to put out some real bangers every two or three novels. Talk To Me isn’t as good as The Harder They Come or When The Killing’s Done but it’s also not bad.

The premise was intriguing. I was hoping to see some unusual stuff come out of a chimp who learned to “speak” - nothing too sensationalist like Planet of the Apes, but something more than… the nothing we got, unfortunately. Boyle went the realist route, which is fine, but means Sam doesn’t behave that unpredictably which leads to a somewhat mundane narrative.

This is basically a retelling of Frankenstein, with Sam as the creature, with a dash of Of Mice and Men - the story of the outsider in society. Because Sam isn’t human but he’s also not quite a chimp either, so he’s something completely different and, consequently, doesn’t fit anywhere. And, like Frankenstein, the end result is a somewhat ponderous, ploddingly-paced narrative - though Boyle is a better writer than Mary Shelley was so it’s not quite so painful to read.

Even though not a whole lot happens, it’s surprisingly not dull for the most part. Boyle writes Sam really convincingly and it’s compelling to see how a chimp behaves, particularly a bright one, when he doesn’t realise he’s a chimp and is being raised as a human child. And some of the set pieces are exciting but I’ll refrain from describing them in case anyone considers them spoilers. I did end up caring a great deal for Sam’s plight though and that ending is quite moving.

What I didn’t like was how the chapters from different characters’ perspectives overlapped so that the same events got recounted twice despite being just a few pages apart - it made the narrative even slower and repetitive. Some chapters are completely irrelevant, like when Aimee was stranded in a small town on her way to Iowa, and would’ve been better off edited out.

Sam’s chapters were excellent though, short as they were. And, besides Sam, I also liked the one-eyed animal dealer Moncrief, whenever he showed up. But Aimee and Guy weren’t particularly interesting characters, which is a shame as they’re constantly around.

I don’t know why it was set in the late ‘70s/early ‘80s besides Guy’s ambition to go on Johnny Carson with Sam. Maybe 72 year old Boyle’s just more comfortable writing about a time when he was in his 30s and understood that world better.

Talk To Me is well-written, parts of it are really good, some not so, that final act really drags, and it’s a bit of a downer overall too. I don’t think it’ll be for everyone but you’ll probably enjoy it if you’re a TC Boyle fan.