The Toneybee Institute

The Toneybee Institute, located in rural Courtland County, Massachusetts, serves as the primary setting for the novel. Formerly a music conservatory, the Institute was converted by Julia Toneybee-Leroy for use as a scientific facility poised to study chimpanzees and the possibility of communicating with them. As such, the brick Institute features beautiful architectural flourishes of cherubim angels and musical instruments, along with towers and wings despite its very practical purpose in the present.

The Institute becomes the home of the Freeman family in the novel, where they live in a large apartment with multiple rooms while teaching Charlie how to sign. While Charles and Laurel are aware of the past, Charlotte and Callie belatedly learn that, for one year under the control of Dr. Gardner, the Institute was used for racially-motivated experiments and eugenics programs. It is a past Julia now seeks to make up for...