Based on the true story of an infamous 1960s experiment, The Dolphin House is a meditation on what makes us truly human.

1965: outside a small house on the coast of St. Thomas, four dolphins are circling in a pool. This is where Cora, newly arrived on the island, finds them by accident, as though they’ve been waiting for her. She won’t discover the motives of the scientists working in the house until later, but by then her apparent connection with the animals—aided by her own deafness—has given her every reason to stay.

The house is a research facility led by the obsessive Dr. Blum, a man aiming to teach the dolphins’ human language. To stave off some of Blum’s more insidious experimentations, Cora suggests they build a flooded apartment where she can live and speak with the youngest dolphin around the clock.

The radical research forges ahead, but Blum has other ideas and Cora’s instincts clash with the male-dominated world of science in the sixties. As a terrible scandal threatens to engulf the experiment, Cora’s determination to save the dolphins becomes a battle to save herself.

Audrey Schulman's profile page

Audrey Schulman is the author of five previous novels, including Three Weeks in December and Theory of Bastards, both published by Europa Editions. Her work has been translated into eleven languages. Born in Montreal, Schulman lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she runs a not-for-profit energy efficiency organisation.

★ “Schulman builds a lovely picture of the growth of mutual trust and enjoyment among the dolphins and Cora... Both woman and dolphins come to vivid life in this fascinating and beautifully realized novel.”—Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)

“Engrossing... As with Ms. Schulman’s outstanding 2018 novel Theory of Bastards, the frisson of The Dolphin House comes when it turns the methods of rigorous observation on its humans.”—Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal

“Readers will enjoy this novel of the human need for connection, conversation, and community.”—Booklist

Praise for A Theory of Bastards

“The novel I can’t get out of my head is Audrey Schulman’s mid-Collapse Theory of Bastards, with its nuanced confluence of the personal and the epic, the human and the nonhuman.”—Jeff VanderMeer

“Both an edifying read and an exhilarating one.”—The Economist

“You will be unable to look away from the page, hardly be able to draw a breath.”—Washington Post

“The best novel I’d read in months, an actual page-turner of a book that blended literary fiction with sci-fi and anthropological research. [. . .] Theory of Bastards is something special.”—Paul Constant, The Seattle Review of Books

“An astute, impeccable page-turner readers will savor. ”—Publishers Weekly

“Schulman is a swift, confident, engaging writer who wields her considerable research [with] a nimble touch.”—Wall Street Journal

“Beguiling, irreverent, and full of heart.”—Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)

Praise for Three Weeks in December

“Schulman delivers the known world in startling new sounds, colors, tastes and smells.”—The New York Times Book Review

“Against a backdrop of punishing nature and menacing warlords, Schulman meticulously explores the inner lives of her characters.” —The New Yorker

“Two mesmerizing tales based on historical fact and enlivened by sympathetic, fully formed characters... This beautiful novel deserves wide readership.”—Library Journal

“The way the two stories come together is unexpected, absolutely original, believable and so beautifully told that the reader leaves the book feeling amazed and completely satisfied.”—Shelf Awareness

“All of this, combined with Schulman’s skill in shaping a narrative and her disciplined prose, makes the novel something of a page-turner, and a fascinating study of the wonder and terror of life in this world.” —National Post (Canada)

“Kudos to Audrey Schulman for a literary feat well done.”—New York Journal of Books