Theory of Bastards

by Audrey Schulman 

I recently read Audrey Schulman’s Theory of Bastards, and I can’t seem to get it out of my mind. It’s a novel that leaves me thinking about the evolution of human nature, about the tension between our better angels and our inner devils, about the emotions generated when we take care of needy others, and about the perils of our ever-increasing estrangement from and harm to nature. I also keep thinking about how subtly and cleverly Schulman weaves the clues to these themes  into her compelling, eventful story.

The novel is set in the US several decades into the future, where electronic communication is even more completely integrated into human life than it is today.  Frankie Burke, an evolutionary biologist in her 30s, is already celebrated for her studies of mate selection in both birds and  humans. She has come to a midwest institute, a refuge for large primates, in order to study bonobos, a species that evolved from the same primate ancestors as human beings (and chimpanzees) did. Bonobos are known for their frequent and promiscuous mating practices – producing lots of bastards, which Frankie finds puzzling from the standpoint of evolutionary theory. The females, it seems, don’t focus on mating with the males who are the strongest or the smartest they can find, but with whoever is close at hand (or close behind).

Day by day, as Frankie observes a troop of bonobos, getting to know the individuals, so do we. Day by day, she learns to communicate with them, and then to observe them from within their enclosure, and eventually, after an extreme weather incident, to take care of them, and finally to bond with them – and they with her. I too came to love the bonobos . They generously share their food.  They mourn their dead. They have sex very often, many coupling at the same time. The females are at the top of their rather gentle dominance hierarchy. Late in the book, Frankie realizes the the females mate more selectively when they are ovulating, and their choices help explain, I think, why bonobos are so different from their more aggressive chimpanzee cousins.

 The arc of Schulman’s increasingly dramatic story, which I comprehended only after I had reached the last page,  is about Frankie’s moral and emotional development -- as well as that of a young male researcher at the institute who is Frankie’s initial guide to the bonobos. And I was left pondering whether there is more of the bonobo in us or more of the chimpanzee.

Bob Kagan