Trials of the Monkey : An Accidental Memoir

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Summary: This Book Should Be In Hotel Rooms Alongside the Bible!
Review: This book by screenwriter/director Matthew Chapman (who also happens to be the great-great grandson of Charles Darwin) is many things. On one hand, it's a wonderfully told piece of history, examining the Scopes Monkey Trial (many think the whole story was told in the play-and-film INHERIT THE WIND, but - as Chapman shows us - there was a lot more to it than most people know). It's also an enlightening and often laugh out-loud funny travelogue as Chapman journeys to Dayton, Tennessee (site of the Scopes Trial) to check out the Evolution vs. Creation debate firsthand. And, finally, it's a hilarious, heartbreaking, and unfailingly honest autobiography: A man's reflection on his most extraordinary life. Whether writing about the amusing characters he met in Tennessee, giving an account of the ups and downs of his career as an A-list writer in Hollywood, or (most movingly) discussing his family and the death of his mother, Chapman is never less than entertaining, perceptive and unflinching. The author is seemingly unable to completely hate anyone, yet he's also laser-beam precise in exposing their foibles (his own most of all). And for those who don't consider themselves religious but still struggle with existential and spiritual matters, TRIALS OF THE MONKEY could also be a helpful and weirdly inspirational book. I read this in two sittings, and found myself for days after regaling friends with anecdotes and lines from it. I have a feeling that TRIALS OF THE MONKEY may well be a classic-to-be, and one can only hope that Chapman's Hollywood career doesn't keep him from writing more books.

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Summary: Musings of a Monkey Man
Review: This very unusually organized memoir of Matthew Chapman, great-great-grandson of Charles Robert Darwin, can be tough going at times, but is well worth the effort. The book began as an exploration of Dayton, Tennessee and the Scopes Trial, but ended up as a deep examination of a human being. Mr. Chapman pulls no punches when it comes to his own life and by the end of the book seems to be a man of greater understanding. If you have expectations of what this book SHOULD be, don't read it. As a person who thinks that a person can be spiritual without being religious or a believer in the supernatural, I enjoyed Mr. Chapman's musings on life, religion, evolution, and masturbation. This book is hard to pigeonhole and I know that some reviewers missed the point[s] while trying. Tell your friends about "Trials of the Monkey"!

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Summary: A Painfully Frank and Ultimately Sad Memoir
Review: Trials is a memoir of a sad, brutal, aimless life. It is engaging in the sense that a screenplay written with a computer program is engaging. There is always some suspense, the character's desires are always frustrated and every scene has the requisite sensory impression and memorable character.
Chapman, a descendant of Charles Darwin, is a screenwriter-director who intersperses his life story with reporting on the annual recreation of the Scopes Monkey trial in Dayton, Tennesssee. The life story is full of graphic details of promiscuity, voyeurism, petty crime and drunk driving. The reporting is vivid and engaging, but also a strange mix of condescension and political correctness. The memoir that emerges is well crafted but unsatisfying because the author experiences no revelation or change of heart, only confusion and more sadness. He is left to his sorry life in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, earning a 7 figure income from Hollywood studios he despises, and forced to send his only daughter to school with the children of investment bankers. The poor-little-rich-kid grew up to be a poor-little-rich-adult with angst.
This book leads you to turn pages, but to what end? I was disappointed.