The Dolphin House: A moving novel on connection and community

(Paperback)

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Description

'Schulman delivers the known world in startling new sounds, colors, tastes and smells.' - New York Times Sunday Book Review

It is 1965 and Cora, a deaf young woman, buys a one-way ticket to the island of St Thomas, where she discovers four dolphins held in captivity, part of an experiment led by an obsessive Dr Bloom. Drawn by a strong connection to the dolphins, untrained Cora falls in with the scientists to protect the animals.

Recognising Cora's knack for communication, Bloom uses her for what will turn into one of the most fascinating experiments in modern science: an attempt to teach the dolphins human language.

As the experiment progresses, Cora forges a remarkable bond with the creatures that leads to a clash with the male-dominated world of science, threatening to engulf the experiment as Cora's fight to save the dolphins becomes a battle to save herself.

Reviews

Praise for Theory of Bastards:

'The novel I can't get out of my head is Audrey Schulman's mid-Collapse Theory of Bastards, with its nuanced confluence of the personal and the epic, the human and the nonhuman.' - Jeff VanderMeer

'Both an edifying read and an exhilarating one.' - The Economist

'Wonderful, intricate. Schulman's vision of the future is powerful and strange.' - Publishers Weekly

Author Bio

Audrey Schulman is the author of four previous novels. Her third, Three Weeks in December, was published by Europa Editions in 2012. Her work has been translated into eleven languages. Born in Montreal, Schulman now lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts where she runs a not-for-profit energy efficiency organisation with her husband.