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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

The male characters in this book are not the nicest men. I made them this way to heighten the plot and Cora’s isolation. However, this is also how I remember many men acting in the 1960s and ’70s. In the 50 years since then, much has changed—what a man can say to a woman on the street, at home or at the office. Through the work of so many people, the Overton window of acceptable behavior has shifted.

As much as I could, the actions of the dolphins in this book are accurate to the capabilities of the species. Below are some notes on that.

ACCURACIES ABOUT DOLPHINS:

• While John Lilly was operating on one of the dolphins, it imitated the sounds of the people speaking around it. This was what inspired Lilly to try to teach the dolphins to speak English.

• When Margaret Howe and the dolphin Peter lived together, he would nurse on her toes each night to go to sleep.

• The scene in this novel when Junior knocks Cora unconscious and then holds her head out of the water so she can breathe is based on an experience of Ric O’Barry’s. He was the trainer of the four dolphins who portrayed Flipper in the television show. When working with the dolphins, he once punched one of them. The dolphin hit him back, knocking him unconscious, then pushed Ric onto the shore far enough to breathe until he woke up.

• Margaret was afraid of Peter’s teeth. He trained her to get over that fear by playing catch and throwing the ball less and less far each time, until she had to put her hand in his mouth to take the ball away.

• Peter did learn to speak part of the alphabet and a recognizable version of Margaret’s name. To make the sounds, he would roll his blowhole in and out of the water. He would practice the sounds for hours in front of a mirror, trying to get the sounds right. Radiolab has an episode, Home Is Where Your Dolphin Is, with the recordings of Peter’s vocalizations. It’s amazing. He did not become quite as proficient at speaking as I show in this book.

• Unlike humans and almost all other animals, dolphins have voluntary breathing. In captivity, they will sometimes simply stop breathing and die. Some experts believe it is suicide.

INACCURACIES ABOUT DOLPHINS:

• So far as I know newly caught dolphins are not too polite to take fish from humans.

• Dolphins eat squid. It’s one of their favorite foods. They don’t just play with them.

• I don’t know of any dolphin figuring out how to lower a gate, but dolphins in captivity have blocked pool filters to back up the water.

• The first researchers to publish that dolphins can recognize themselves in mirrors are Diana Reiss and Lori Marino in 2001, not Margaret Howe in the 1960s.

• Dr. Denise Herzing’s research team did create a device to play the dolphin’s key whistles back to them. Margaret Howe was not involved with this research. Dr. Herzing’s research is still ongoing. She has a TED talk called “Could We Speak the Language of Dolphins?” She has a foundation, the Wild Dolphin Project, that funds this research. I am a monthly supporter.