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Contents (45)
  1. ALSO BY AUDREY SCHULMAN
  2. THE DOLPHIN HOUSE
  3. ONE Tampa, Florida Feb. 1965
  4. TWO Aug. 1957 Ogunquit, Maine
  5. THREE May 1965
  6. FOUR March 1958 Orlando, Florida
  7. ARRIVAL
  8. FIVE June 4, 1965
  9. SIX June 4, 1965
  10. SEVEN June 5, 1965
  11. EIGHT June 6–10, 1965
  12. NINE June 11–16, 1965
  13. TEN June 17–26, 1965
  14. ELEVEN June 27–30, 1965
  15. TWELVE July 1–8, 1965
  16. THIRTEEN July 9–13, 1965
  17. FOURTEEN July 14, 1965
  18. LANGUAGE LESSONS
  19. FIFTEEN July 15–17, 1965
  20. SIXTEEN
  21. SEVENTEEN July 18–25, 1965
  22. EIGHTEEN July 26–Aug. 1, 1965
  23. NINETEEN Aug. 2–7, 1965
  24. TWENTY Aug. 8–15, 1965
  25. TWENTY-ONE Aug. 16, 1965
  26. TWENTY-TWO Aug. 17–30, 1965
  27. HOMEARIUM
  28. TWENTY-THREE Homearium, Day 1
  29. TWENTY-FOUR Homearium, Day 3
  30. TWENTY-FIVE Homearium, Days 4–7
  31. TWENTY-SIX Homearium, Week 2
  32. TWENTY-SEVEN Homearium, Week 3
  33. TWENTY-EIGHT Homearium, Week 4
  34. TWENTY-NINE Homearium, Week 5
  35. THIRTY Homearium, Weeks 6–8
  36. THIRTY-ONE Homearium, Weeks 9–11
  37. THIRTY-TWO Homearium, Week 12
  38. THIRTY-THREE Homearium, Week 13
  39. THIRTY-FOUR Homearium, Week 14
  40. THIRTY-FIVE Homearium, Week 15
  41. THIRTY-SIX Homearium, Week 16
  42. THIRTY-SEVEN Homearium, Week 18
  43. THIRTY-EIGHT
  44. AUTHOR’S NOTE
  45. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Snowflake jerked around, so fast she skidded sideways through the water, staring at the humans, as startled as if a dog had spoken.

* * *

Cora was just a few feet from the surface now, kicking upward, her lungs straining.

Perhaps sometimes she stayed too long underwater, forgetting to breathe, a bit hypoxic, because she knew then she would feel the presence of those other eras, the solidity of the past. Under these circumstances, her ears ringing, lights flickering in the corners of her eyes, she could sense the past here with her.

Her hand almost at the surface now, she knew she could close her eyes and hold the twins close again, wrapped in the quilt on the floor, their warm baby bodies tight to her chest, their breath on her face.

She could close her eyes and see Junior in the pool, looking at her. Her looking at him. She could hear him, speaking to her. Kohr.

Love, eternal.

In 1965, a Young Woman Lived in Isolation with a Male Dolphin in the Name of Science. It Got Weird.

National Post, June 6, 2014

From outside it looked like another spacious Virgin Islands villa with a spiral staircase twisting up to a sunny balcony overlooking the Caribbean Sea. But Dolphin Point Laboratory on the island of St. Thomas was part of a unique Washington-funded research institute run by Dr. John C. Lilly, the wackiest and most polarizing figure in marine science history . . .

For ten weeks, from June to August 1965, the St. Thomas research centre became the site of Lilly’s most notorious and highly criticized experiment, when his young assistant, Margaret Howe, volunteered to live in confinement with Peter, a bottlenose dolphin. The dolphin house was flooded with water and redesigned for a specific purpose: to allow the 23-year-old Howe and the dolphin to live, sleep, eat, wash and play intimately together. The objective of the experiment was to see whether a dolphin could be taught human speech—a hypothesis that Lilly, in 1960, predicted could be a reality “within a decade or two.” . . .

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Since childhood, I have been most awake when I’m around animals. When I write about them, my stories come alive. So over the years, I’ve learned to accept the subject I’ve been given.

In an attempt to make this obsession interesting to you, I make sure there is a strong plot, the possibility of violence and a touch of sex. I write every word with all the honesty I can muster.

I first read about Margaret Howe and the dolphin Peter in my teens. The story was riveting, but, even then, I noticed how much was missing and how little comment was made about the essential tragedy of it. This novel retells the basic events but with fictional characters. For instance, so far as I know, Margaret Howe is not hearing impaired, did not marry a vet and does not have any Seminole ancestors.

If you are curious about what actually happened, I recommend the Radiolab podcast, Home Is Where Your Dolphin Is, as well as some of John Lilly’s books listed below.