If ever a chimpanzee could be said to have charisma, it was Nim Chimpsky. Brought to New York as part of a scientific experiment, he lived his early years with a large family in an elegant brownstone on the Upper West Side in Manhattan. The researchers of Project Nim hoped to prove that by assimilating Nim into a human family, he could learn sign language with enough proficiency to show promise of being able to refute Noam Chomsky's contention that the capacity to learn language was a uniquely human trait. Nim proved to be a good student - pleasing researchers with the level of proficiency he acquired, and the charming, well-mannered personality he developed.He began to eat meals with his family, attended children's birthday parties, and even became somewhat of a celebrity when he made guest appearances on Sesame Street, modeling good behavior for toddlers. But when funding for the study ended, Nim's problems began. No one had thought about what to do with an animal who had been raised to believe he was human - and who had a projected lifespan of another 30 or 40 years. Over the next two decades, exiled from everyone he loved, Nim was rotated in and out of various facilities, including, at his lowest point, a medical lab where research was being done on a vaccine for hepatitis. But everywhere he went, Nim's ability to converse with humans would be his lifeboat, saving him again and again from the fate of his peers.