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Trials Of The Monkey

Name: Trials Of The Monkey
Author: Matthew Chapman
ISBN: 9780312300784

by Matthew Chapman

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Overview

"When Darwin called his second book The Descent of Man instead of The Ascent of Man he was thinking of his progeny."

So declares Darwin's great-great grandson Matthew Chapman as he leaves behind his stressful career as a Hollywood screenwriter and travels to Dayton, Tennessee where in 1925 creationist opposition to the teaching of evolution in schools was played out in a famous legal drama, the Scopes Monkey Trial.

The purpose of this journey is to see if opinions have changed in the seventy- five intervening years. A defiant atheist, Chapman is confronted not only by the fundamentalist beliefs that continue to banish the theory of evolution but by his own spiritual malaise as the outward journey becomes an inward quest, a tragicomic "accidental memoir".

"First there was Charles Darwin, two yards long and nobody's fool. Then there was his son, my great-grandfather, Sir Francis Darwin, an eminent botanist. Then came my grandmother Frances, a modest poet who spent a considerable amount of time in rest-homes for depression From her issued my beloved mother, Clare, who was extremely short, failed to complete medical school, and eventually became an alcoholic. Then we get down to me. I'm in the movie business."

Trials of the Monkey combines travel writing and reportage, as Chapman records his encounters in the South, with history and the accidental memoir of a man full of mid-life doubts in a genre-breaking first book that is darkly funny, provocative and poignant.

Synopsis

"When Darwin called his second book The Descent of Man instead of The Ascent of Man he was thinking of his progeny."

So declares Darwin's great-great grandson Matthew Chapman as he leaves behind his stressful career as a Hollywood screenwriter and travels to Dayton, Tennessee, where in 1925 creationist opposition to the teaching of evolution in schools was played out in a famous legal drama, the so-called Scopes Monkey Trial.

The purpose of this journey is to see if opinions have changed in the seventy-five intervening years. A defiant atheist, Chapman records his encounters in the South, where he is confronted not only by the fundamentalists still trying to banish the theory of evolution but also, ironically, by his own spiritual malaise. The outward journey becomes an inward quest, a tragicomic accidental memoir.

"First there was Charles Darwin, two yards long and nobody's fool. Then there was his son, my great-grandfather, Sir Francis Darwin, an eminent botanist. Then came my grandmother Frances, a modest poet who spent a considerable amount of time in rest-homes for depression. From her issued my beloved mother, Clare, who was extremely short, failed to complete medical school, and eventually became an alcoholic. Then we get down to me. I'm in the movie business."

Trials of the Monkey combines travel writing and reportage with history and the accidental memoir of a man full of midlife doubts in a genre-breaking first book that is darkly funny, provocative and poignant.

About the Author:

Matthew Chapman was born in Cambridge, England and is the great-great grandson of Charles Darwin. He has written and directed five films, and lived for many years in Los Angeles. A Hollywood screenwriter he now lives in Manhattan. Trials of the Monkey is his first book.

Spectator - Tony Gould

Hugely entertaining While Chapman can be as funny and revealing as either [Bill Bryson or Paul Theroux] in the travel sections of his book, the autobiographical element plumbs greater depths.

About the Author, Matthew Chapman

Matthew Chapman was born in Cambridge, England and is the great-great grandson of Charles Darwin. He has written and directed five films, and lived for many years in Los Angeles. A Hollywood screenwriter he now lives in Manhattan.Trials of the Monkey is his first book.

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Editorials

From Barnes & Noble

Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers
A successful screenwriter with a lucrative income and a lifestyle to match, Matthew Chapman found himself in the middle of a midlife crisis in his late 40s. The great-great-grandson of the famed scientist Charles Darwin, Chapman decided to reclaim his integrity by writing a book. The subject matter of the book "was not an arbitrary choice" -- it was to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Scopes "Monkey" trial, "the trial of a schoolteacher accused of teaching evolution in defiance of Tennessee law."

Chapman contracts with his publisher to travel from his home in New York to the Bible Belt of Dayton, Tennessee, the celebrated small town where the trial took place, and to observe the town's annual theatrical event: the reenactment of the trial itself. But what the author failed to take into account when he set out on this journey was that "I was on the verge of my own crisis, spiritual and otherwise." While compiling his research on the trial, Chapman reflects back on his life, and "another book, a book within a book, began to form, an accidental memoir." As Chapman's humorous narrative details the "philosophical skirmish between religion and reason," he comes to the realization that "I had fallen off the rails. Perhaps this other book would help me climb back on." And indeed, it does. (Fall 2001 Selection)

Patrick Skene Catling

A clever, provocative and very entertaining hotchpotch of confession and redneck theology, a genre all his own.
— Irish Times

Spalding Gray

In his insightful, confessional and intimately human voice, Chapman reads like he's right there talking to you.

Tony Gould

Hugely entertaining…While Chapman can be as funny and revealing as either [Bill Bryson or Paul Theroux] in the travel sections of his book, the autobiographical element plumbs greater depths.
— Spectator

From The Critics

Matthew Chapman, a forty-seven-year-old New York screenwriter and great-great-grandson of Charles Darwin, goes to Dayton, Tennessee, to see what has changed in the seventy-five years since the Scopes Monkey Trial, in which William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow debated Darwinism. Chapman meets a Harvard-trained creation scientist at Bryan College and a deputy sheriff, along with a few randomly selected townies—and concludes that not much has affected the Christian beliefs of rural Americans. What changes is Chapman's attitude. Expecting to poke fun at stereotypical rednecks, he ends up liking most of the people and making fun of himself. By incorporating trial transcripts and descriptions in his travel narrative, he creates a very amusing and informative piece of double-barreled reportage. Chapman closes the book by describing his shift from rabid atheist to humane agnostic, not an ending for a Hollywood opus but one just right for this sharp-eyed and entertaining work.
—Tom LeClair

Publishers Weekly

A screenwriter and the great-great grandson of Charles Darwin, Chapman heads to Dayton, Tenn., the site of the Scopes Monkey Trial in 1925. As a longstanding atheist, he intends to write a sardonic cultural update of Southern Fundamentalist Christianity. But to his surprise, and the reader's delight, the book takes on a power of its own. This first-time author has written an honest, ironic autobiography that traces the development of a boyish wise guy into a complex man of letters. In an account that stands in favorable comparison to the best examples of eccentric English autobiography, such as the work of Robert Graves and Anthony Burgess, Chapman weaves the story of his life of advantage and distinguished intellectual pedigree in England, New York City and Hollywood with a travelogue into an unknown realm, misperceived to be inhabited by hillbillies. The incongruous encounters and anecdotes, moving between past and present, meld into an insightful study of a man trying to make sense of it all. Stories from the author's rebellious youth, unconventional family constellation and contemporary life are juxtaposed with images of caustic trends in modern society and Southern idiosyncrasies. The result is an absorbing and finely honed journal of courageous, often amusing self-awareness which moves from a posture of extreme skepticism regarding the possibility of the divine to a more open-minded, appreciative stance regarding the possible sacred meaning(s) of life. (Sept.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

This first book by a successful screenwriter is an odd but fascinating mix of history, science, religion, travel, and memoir, combining Chapman's heritage as the great-great grandson of Charles Darwin, his interest in the Scopes "monkey" trial, and his "accidental" autobiography. Amazingly, he succeeds in the effort to convey the creation of a writer (himself) and his family as well as the world of creationism. The book alternates between autobiographical chapters and chapters covering trips Chapman made to Dayton, TN, site of the Scopes trial, prior to and following its annual reenactment. The people he encounters in Tennessee provide rich material for Chapman's examination of evolution and how the trial affected the original participants and, via fundamentalism, continues to influence people's lives. Despite a few sloppy geographical errors (Roanoke is in Virginia, not West Virginia), the writing is excellent, the story poignant, and the message complex. Recommended for larger collections in public and academic libraries. Michael D. Cramer, Raleigh, NC Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Chapman, a Britisher now living in the US, earns big bucks authoring screenplays. Now, as a great-great grandson of Charles Darwin, it's appropriate that he use his writerly skills to report on current doings in Dayton, Tennessee, scene of the Scopes trial three-quarters of a century ago. One might expect, on first looking into Chapman's homage, that his text would be concerned chiefly with the notorious courtroom battle between the dark forces of evolution theory and the effulgent powers of creationist fundamentalism. The drama of the case and the Bryan-Darrow duel are depicted adequately, to be sure, but that's been done before. Here, though, the trial is merely the hook upon which Chapman hangs his own coming-of-age yarn in a book that's largely about the evolution of particular Darwinian progeny. It's the story of Chapman's parents-his cool, clever father and his alcoholic, promiscuous mother-and it's also his own story. As any proper nostalgic Englishman must, Chapman describes his schooldays, complete with canings and nasty masters. He includes his vicissitudes as bibulous voyeur and eczema sufferer, as well as his chronic horniness. The result is solipsism run rampant and immoderately readable, particularly when the self-absorbed author takes us through the wilds of East Tennessee with his entertaining tale of an atheist among the Bible-thumpers. He sasses the hicks as if invested with the extravagant arrogance of H.L. Mencken (who was, of course, the premier reporter of the trial); for the bulk of his story, he just can't suppress his supercilious sneer. And yet there is, ultimately, an unexpected respect for the rednecks, who treat him with puzzled respect and native courtesy."If I went down an atheist," he finally writes, "I came back an agnostic"-like Charles Darwin. Caustic social history and, undiminished by a sentimental finale, a flamboyant autobiography by a trenchant talent. Author tour; radio satellite tour