Gus:
The Life & Opinions of the
Last Raffles’ Banded Langur
What’s Gus: The Life & Opinions of the Last Raffles’ Banded Langur about?
Gus is a novel about a monkey at the end of the world who talks and wants to find his way home to the jungles of Bukit Timah Nature Reserve.
This is the story of his journey through a Singapore falling apart, and his search for a home and community.
We first meet Gus, a chained and abused, talking Raffles’ Banded Langur, entertaining drivers at a Jakarta intersection. Charlie Tan, an auditor, who secretly wants to be a clown, rescues Gus and smuggles him back to Singapore on the last flight before the borders close.
Gus yearns to find his family at Bukit Timah Nature Reserve but at every turn the violent turmoil unleashed by articulate, rampaging monkeys led by the eloquent Monkey King obstructs his path. Gus and Charlie part ways as the monkey revolution spreads chaos and mayhem across the island. A Filipino nurse, Juliette Salonga, rocked by guilt and grief for the death of her daughter and husband, helps Gus in his quest.
As nature reasserts itself across the island, they search for a home that will accept them for who they are. Gus and Juliette trudge up and down the Rail Corridor to the Monkey Kingdom at Clementi Forest, while Charlie finds survivors taking refuge amongst the heritage shophouses of Blair Plain and the higher levels of the Pinnacle@Duxton.
Will Gus find his family — the last Raffles’ Banded Langurs — at Bukit Timah? Will Charlie get to be a clown or will his past come back to haunt him? Will Juliette find peace? Will people listen when nature talks back?
Find the answers to these questions, and more, in Gus: The Life & Opinions of the Last Raffles’ Banded Langur, a dystopian, Singaporean eco-fiction adventure with monkeys, clowns, nursing care and shophouses.
Raffles’ banded langur, Singapore. Credit: @TerenceSzeto
What are Raffles’ Banded Langurs?
Raffles’ Banded Langurs are critically endangered primates found in Singapore and southern Malaysia. There are only about 70 in Singapore. They are shy and elusive, skilled at balancing, leaping and swinging from tree to tree, rarely coming down to the ground. They sport white bands on their underside and black fur on their body. In Singapore, they are the largest non-human primate still in existence.
Gus, a talking Raffles Banded Langur
Who are the key characters in Gus: The Life & Opinions of the Last Raffles’ Banded Langur?
The novel is narrated by Gus, a precocious, articulate Raffles’ Banded Langur in search of his family at Bukit Timah Nature Reserve. He last saw his family many years ago before wildlife smugglers tore him from them and trafficked him to Jakarta where he entertained drivers stuck in traffic jams by juggling and reciting Pramoedya Ananta Toer on a unicycle.
Gus is rescued from his chains by Charlie Tan, an auditor on assignment in Jakarta who secretly strives to be a clown. Charlie’s biggest challenge is dealing with his aging father, the authoritarian, order-loving, primate hating, model-citizen, Senior Staff Sergeant Tan.
Gus is helped in his quest to return to Bukit Timah by Juliette Salonga, a hard working Filipino nurse, seeking to heal her grief over the death of her daughter and abusive husband.
Dominating the fall of Singapore is The Monkey King, monkey number one, bred in the laboratories of Biopolis, a vengeful, macaque looking to up-end the world and right the wrongs of his past.
Topeng Monyet in Jakarta Selatan. Please support the Jakarta Animal Aid Network & their work to end dancing monkeys
Credit: @TerenceSzeto
What was the inspiration for Gus: The Life & Opinions of the Last Raffles’ Banded Langur?
Gresham tells us:
‘My story is inspired by, and grieves for, the adverse impact of human development upon nature. The world faces existential crises of the climate crisis and dealing biodiversity — all due to the impact of unfettered greed and human development. The biggest disaster in our history was when humans forgot we are part of nature. We forgot how interconnected humans are with each other and with nature.
‘The novel shows us how people and animals behave as the world falls apart. The novel explores how our only future is together, finding new forms of kinship — beyond inherited genetics, race, religion, corporations and countries — in shared experience.
‘My story is also inspired by asking myself what it is like to be another species. I read JM Coetzee and Barbara Smuts, Thomas Nagel’s paper on What is it Like to Be a Bat?, William Olsen’s poem A Fallen Bat, Philip Larkin’s The Mower, Kij Johnson’s 26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss and The Evolution of Trickster Stories Among the Dogs of North Park After the Change, and a wonderful Australian novel about communication between species sparked by a pandemic, Laura Jean McKay’s The Animals in That Country.
‘Another inspiration for the novel is the 1988 painting Fear of Monkeys/Evolution by David Wojnarowicz created at the height of the AIDs crisis which touches on mortality and the natural world abused by man.
‘In Singapore, we are taught to be functional, utilitarian and pragmatic and to see ourselves isolated from, rather than entangled with, nature. Nature is our tool, a means to human ends of profit and recreation. I think we need to remember we are one with nature and that we’re communicating with nature all the time. I think we need to remember how inter-connected we are, and that only empathy, grace and kindness with all living things make life worth living.
‘I walked and cycled a lot along the Rail Corridor and asked myself what all the living things would say if they could speak.’
Jon Gresham at his writing desk trying to work out where to put the comma, May 2021
How was this novel written?
Gresham tells us:
‘In early 2021 during the dark days of the pandemic, I started brainstorming ideas and scribbling notes longhand and drawing character sketches. I named this ‘The Blue Monkey Zombie Project’. I expanded key characters by exploring what they yearned for, and why. I drew mind maps for settings and action. I free wrote strange scenes and collected images of monkeys and examples of my key characters. I read about primates, Raffles’ banded langurs, and animal and human consciousness.
‘I started to create scenes and write these in pencil on index cards, and began to order and rewrite the index cards seeking to find coherence and arcs for characters.
‘I summarised the scenes in complex spreadsheets and outlined each scene. Once I was happy with the basic story I re-ordered and outlined each scene and chapter again.
‘I transferred the outline and scene summaries to Scrivener and began to write each scene in detail. I rewrote and rewrote, and revised and revised and revised.
‘I submitted a draft manuscript to the Epigram Books Fiction Prize in August 2022 and was fortunate to be shortlisted. I negotiated a publishing agreement with Epigram Books.’
The Rail Corridor, Singapore
Tell us about the settings in Gus: The Life & Opinions of the Last Raffles’ Banded Langur
The novel takes place in a Singapore falling apart as monkeys rampage and nature grows back.
Settings include a traffic intersection at Jakarta Selatan, Changi Airport, HDB flats in Spottiswoode Park, Raffles Place, Singapore General Hospital, Cantonment Police Complex, the shophouses of Blair Road and Everton Road, along the Rail Corridor, Clementi Forest, Rifle Range Road, Bukit Timah Nature Reserve, beneath the skyscrapers of Marina Bay Financial District and Shenton Way, The Pinnacle@Duxton, Harbourfront Library at Vivo City and Sentosa Cove.