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Before primatologist Patricia Chapple Wright became the world's foremost expert on lemurs, she was enchanted by another primate Aotus, the owl monkey, or "monkey of the night". But along her journey to discover the behaviour of these unique nocturnal creatures, Wright finds more than she expected about family, human nature, and herself.
It all starts in a New York City pet shop when Wright and her husband buy an owl monkey whose lively and rambunctious ways soon lead the young couple to South America to acquire him a mate. But while Wright's monkey family is growing, her own begins to fall apart when her husband leaves her and her daughter. Undeterred by her lack of academic experience, Wright sets out as a single mother to study primate behaviour in the wild, including a year at a research station in the remote jungles of Peru. There she encounters jaguars, poisonous snakes, army ants, and massive floods that threaten her and her daughter's lives, as well as moments of great clarity and beauty.
From New York City in the 1960s to the depths of the Amazon in the 1970s and 80s, this story of one woman's transformation from a Brooklyn housewife to an accomplished scientist will captivate fans of Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Biruté Galdikas. High Moon Over the Amazon is a thrilling memoir of adventure, inspiration, and of falling in love with a species not so unlike our own.
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1. Monkey Business (New York, 1968)
Chapter 2. Monkey Matchmaking (Colombia, 1971)
Chapter 3. Tropical Diseases (Costa Rica, 1972)
Chapter 4. Father Care (Cape Cod, 1973-75)
Chapter 5. Monkey in the Moon (Puerto Bermudez, 1976)
Chapter 6. Into the Amazon (New York and Peru 1977-80)
Chapter 7. Green Cathedral (Cocha Cashu, 1980)
Chapter 8. Jungle Tales: (Cocha Cashu, 1980)
Chapter 9. The Return of Gringa Valiente (Cocha Cashu and Puerto Bermudez, Dec 1980- Jan 1981)
Chapter 10. The Lone Ranger (Cocha Cashu, Jan-May 1981)
Chapter 11. Harpy Eagle and Big Fig (Cocha Cashu, 1981)
Chapter 12. Darkness Brightens (New York, 1982-83)
Author's Note
About the Publisher
Patricia Chapple Wright is a primatologist, anthropologist, and conservationist. She is best known for her extensive study of social and family interactions of wild lemurs in Madagascar. She established the Institute for the Conservation of Tropical Environments at Stony Brook University. She worked extensively on conservation and contributed to the establishment of the Ranomafana National Park in Madagascar.
