We Love You, Charlie Freeman: A Novel

A FINALIST FOR THE 2016 CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE AND THE 2017 YOUNG LIONS AWARD

A terrifically auspicious debut. Janet Maslin, The New York Times

Smart, timely and powerful . . . A rich examination of America s treatment of race, and the ways we attempt to discuss and confront it today. The Huffington Post

The Freeman family--Charles, Laurel, and their daughters, teenage Charlotte and nine-year-old Callie--have been invited to the Toneybee Institute to participate in a research experiment. They will live in an apartment on campus with Charlie, a young chimp abandoned by his mother. The Freemans were selected because they know sign language; they are supposed to teach it to Charlie and welcome him as a member of their family. But when Charlotte discovers the truth about the institute s history of questionable studies, the secrets of the past invade the present in devious ways.

The power of this shattering novel resides in Greenidge s undeniable storytelling talents. What appears to be a story of mothers and daughters, of sisterhood put to the test, of adolescent love and grown-up misconduct, and of history s long reach, becomes a provocative and compelling exploration of America s failure to find a language to talk about race.

A magnificently textured, vital, visceral feat of storytelling . . . [by] a sharp, poignant, extraordinary new voice of American literature. T a Obreht, author of The Tiger s Wife