The Follow: A True Story

Patrick Colgan is the former executive director of the Canadian Museum
of Nature.

In fieldwork, a “follow” is the tracking and observation of an
animal of interest. The author of two novels, Linda Spalding has created
a complex work of nonfiction inspired by her obsession with orangutans.
Fascinated with the work of Biruté Galdikas in Borneo, Spalding
undertakes a geographical and personal odyssey consisting of numerous
unsuccessful attempts to join the primatologist, three trips to Borneo,
and excursions around North America to meet with Galdikas, other
workers, and even convicted animal smugglers. Looming large amid these
wanderings are her two daughters, her Dayak guide and eventual friend
Riska, several factions of Western and local wildlife workers,
Indonesian bureaucrats, and, of course, wild and rehabilitated
orangutans encountered in the forests along the rivers.

The style is stark and intense and the emotional context is pungent
with Spalding’s reminiscences of her earlier life, her convictions and
dreams, and her prickly social sensitivity, as she dissects bonds among
the women, Galdikas’s insistence on blind loyalty, male domineering,
and contrasts between species and cultures. No person or event is immune
from dissection, including Spalding who at one point confesses to
stepping on a nest of fire ants while hiking in the jungle in sandals.
The resulting picture is a devastating one of a remote and power-hungry
Galdikas, tensions within and among all groups, natural destruction,
feckless ecotourism, largely doomed orangutans, and a generally unhappy
world.

There are tiny black-and-white photographs (at least one of which is
laterally reversed) and a couple of crude maps, but no references or
index.

This book certainly illustrates the psychological lure of the great
apes, and will intrigue readers who enjoy complex personal sojourns.
Those seeking more objective nonfiction will be disappointed. The Follow
is much closer to Conrad’s Heart of Darkness than Wallace’s The
Malay Archipelago.