Audrey Schulman

Welcome friends! Today it is my pleasure to host author Audrey Schulman and learn more about her and her book, The Dolphin House. This was a thought-provoking historical fiction based on the famous 1965 “dolphin house” experiment. I loved this book and if you haven’t checked out my review yet, head to it after reading this interview. Many thanks to the publisher, Europa Editions, for connecting me with Audrey!

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Hi Audrey. Thank you so much for taking some time out to chat with me about your latest book, The Dolphin House. Before we dive into the questions, can you please tell me and my readers a bit about yourself?

Born a long time ago, outside of the US, I have traveled enough to have vomited on four continents, including once onto a Masai tribesman’s feet.  He, unfortunately, was barefoot.

I have two sons who I love like crazy, and I co-run a nonprofit, HEET, that fights climate change in MA.  I am lucky enough to work with great people there.  

How did the idea for The Dolphin House come to you? What was your first reaction when you learned about John Lilly’s dolphin research?

I first heard about John Lilly’s work with dolphins when I was a teenager.  The research seemed to me, even at the time, to be imaginative and slightly crazy. He wanted to teach the dolphins to speak English.  

Dolphins make noise through their blowholes and thus have no teeth, tongue or lips with which to form their sounds.  Expecting them to be able to make the noises necessary for English is like expecting a horse to sing like a bird. 

There was a researcher working with Lilly whose name is Margaret Howe Lovatt.  She thought the best way to teach a dolphin to speak would be to live with the dolphin like a mother lives with a baby.  So she had an apartment built for her and a dolphin to live in.  The apartment was filled with water about 18” deep. The furniture hung on chains from the ceiling.  

She and a dolphin moved into the apartment and lived together for several months while she tried to teach him to speak English, talking to the dolphin constantly.  Perhaps the strangest thing about the whole project was that she and the dolphin managed to make amazing progress. 

Then the research was cut off abruptly because of some information that came out about it.  This information made this project one of the most infamous in history, renowned to this day.  Lovatt was never allowed to work in science again.

The experiment took place in the 1960s.  The accounts of it were told very much through the lens of that time, primarily through John Lilly’s words. Even when I read about the experiment as a teenager, I thought there was so much to this story that was left unsaid.

I wrote this novel in order to explore what it might have been like from the woman’s point of view.  I wanted to open up the parts of the story that had not been told.  

The story is fiction, with different characters, but it is based on the actual events.

I enjoyed reading how you researched this book, thank you for adding those notes at the end. Were you able to connect with Margaret Howe Lovatt, the woman who was part of the 1965 “dolphin house” experiment?

For over 50 years, there have been a lot of press stories written about the research and about Lovatt.  So it was hard to track her down, but once I did, I sent her the book to read.  A few weeks later, she called me on the phone.  I can’t tell you how strange it was to hear her voice, this woman whose experience and research I had spent years studying.

She asked why I had sent her the novel before publication. I said she’d been treated badly by reporters.  Because of that, I wanted to make sure to give her a heads up about the book.  

She was so surprised.  In all the decades since her research happened, no writer or reporter had ever given her warning or checked the story with her. 

She asked for only one change to the book and I made that change. 

Is there something that you learned which you chose not to include in the book?

As a writer, what I edit out is probably much more important than what I put in.  It’s also one of the more painful parts of writing. 

Of all the information I didn’t include, what I found most surprising was that at times dolphins murder and rape each other. That’s not the image we have of the animals, but they, like us, are capable of all sorts of actions.

Do you have a favorite quote or scene in the book that you find yourself going back to?

After my main character, Cora, had been living with the dolphin for a while, working to teach him to speak, the dolphin wasn’t making much progress.  So she leaves the dolphin alone in the apartment for a day, taking a much needed day off.  

At the end of the day she comes back and the dolphin, desperate to get her back, is yelling out the start of the alphabet to the best of his abilities.  That scene breaks my heart each time.

One of the highlights of The Dolphin House for me was Cora herself. Cora had become deaf at the age of eight years and had since worn special glasses to help with hearing. It was disheartening to see how the three researchers behaved around her, knowing very well that they needed to look at her for her to lip read and understand them. Was this an artistic liberty that you included in the book and if yes, why did you choose to do that?

I don’t think it’s that unusual for people to forget about a person’s hearing impairment.  My parents are both going deaf and I find myself forgetting to face them and speak clearly.  

Unlike a wheelchair, hearing aids are not very visible, so they are easy to forget.  And all of us are used to speaking at a certain speed and volume.  During a conversation, it’s difficult to not be distracted, to remember to speak slower and hit the consonants clearly, to face the person and not turn away.

A hearing impairment is a little like bad vision, the edges get blurry.  Some consonants in particular are hard to distinguish. A conversation can become like a very rapid spoken crossword puzzle, where you have to guess the missing letters quickly. 

If readers could take one thing away from this book, what would you hope it be? 

For me, writing is magic.  If the writer is good, you can for the length of the book slip into another time, place and body, live in someone else’s skin and see the world through that person’s eyes.  

Ideally, the reader should close the book with more empathy and imagination and a little more kindness.  I hope people feel that at least a little bit with The Dolphin House.

A number of your books are about scientists and researchers and I am particularly looking forward to picking up The Cage. How is The Dolphin House different or similar to your both books?

Every writer has certain subjects where the writing comes alive.  Half of the task of learning how to write is identifying what those subjects are for you.

For me, I have found my subjects are: 

• Charismatic megafauna – polar bears, dolphins, lions, etc. 
• Female researchers who are physically different in some way: hearing impaired, having Aspergers, endometriosis, etc..  I use this physical difference to help the reader step into the character’s viewpoint. 
• A climate that is different from the one I live in: Indonesia, the Arctic, etc. 
• The potential for something violent to happen.

The Dolphin House contains all of this.  

If you are a writer and want to know what subjects you should write about –where your writing will be the best it can be– then listen to or read other people’s stories.  Figure out what are the kinds of stories that, while they are being told, you disappear and can remember every detail afterward.  These stories contain the subjects you should write about. 

Are there any books that you would say influenced and shaped you as a writer?

• The Border Trilogy by Cormac McCarthy
• Almost any book by Valerie Martin
• Beloved by Toni Morrison
• The Vet’s Daughter by Barbara Comyns
• Death of a Man by Kay Boyle 

Do you currently have another book idea? If yes, are you able to share what this book will be about?

No, I am currently searching for a subject for a new novel.  So far, I’ve been reading about deep caving and polar exploration and extraterrestrial sightings and so many other things but haven’t yet found the one that pulls me in.  If you have ideas –especially ones with female researchers and charismatic megafauna– send them my way. 

Last question, for someone who enjoyed The Dolphin House, are there any books you would recommend them to read next?

Of course, I have to recommend my other novels.  My publisher would yell at me if I didn’t say that.  

If you’re interested in the story itself of Lovatt and the dolphin, then I have a list of books about that story at the end of The Dolphin House.  I personally recommend the RadioLab podcast on Margaret Howe Lovatt’s research and experience with the dolphin: Home is Where your Dolphin Is. 

Thank you for answering my questions, Audrey, and for writing The Dolphin House. I learned so much through Cora and the dolphins.

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Thank you for hanging out with Audrey and me! Connect with Audrey on her website and Twitter. 

Cover image: Photo by Tim de Groot on Unsplash