Nearby, an orangutan researcher is threatened with being thrown out of her study site unless she can reach a compromise with the powerful minister of the environment. At the heart of Redheads fictional action lies the very real problem of rainforest destruction and the philosophical question of where the real boundaries lie between apes and humans.
Redheads is a serious page turner.
An absorbing story, reminiscent of the social commentary of Somerset Maugham and Evelyn Waugh. With the trained eyes and the sensitivity of someone who lived among the orangutans in the wilds of Borneo, Sochaczewski tells a captivating story of the struggle to save the rainforests. The action is fast and furious, the cat and mouse chases between the Penan and the timber workers are great, the blowpipes with poison darts are rife and the encounters with the orangutans are magnificent, funny and at times terribly sad. Numerous news reports resonate with the fictional people and situations in Redheads, a comic eco-adventure novel by Paul Spencer Sochaczewski. Redheads is about a Swiss shepherd who encourages the tribal Penan of Borneo to rebel against timber companies that are destroying the Penan forest homeland, schizophrenic orangutans facing extinction in the wild, orangutan researchers who will do almost anything to keep their work permits, and corrupt government officials in the fictional Sultanate of Manusia.