THE EVOLUTION OF BRUNO LITTLEMORE

This “memoir” is dictated by neurotic, hyperintelligent linguist, philosopher, litterateur, scientist, and social commentator Bruno Littlemore. Bruno is incarcerated at the Zastrow National Primate Research Center in Georgia for killing a man. Bruno is a chimpanzee. Benjamin Hale’s remarkable Bruno makes allusions to Kafka, Freud, and Milton and asks, during a scientific experiment, “Do I dare to eat a peach?” In a tour-de-force performance Robert Petkoff tackles Bruno’s first-person narrative. With unbridled enthusiasm and pedantic smugness, Petkoff struggles through Bruno’s earliest memories at Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo and makes real and tender Bruno’s falling in love with primatologist Lydia Littlemore. As Bruno engages in his first interactive conversation with a janitor in the research lab, Petkoff’s animal exuberance is pure brilliance. A must-listen. S.J.H. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine [Published: JUNE 2011]