Tradition claims animals can see ghosts, but no animal has ever been able to tell about them--until Smithy.

Smithy is an epistolary novel in the style of Dracula that depicts, through letters, diaries, and video transcripts, the story of a chimpanzee learning sign language against the backdrop of a rumored haunted house. Baffled by his perplexing and sometimes threatening behavior, Smithy’s teachers question whether their primate language experiment is a dismal failure or a bigger success than they could have imagined. Can Smithy really communicate with the legendary ghost of Trevor Hall, or are the scientists deluding themselves?

Drawing from real-life primate studies and "true" ghost stories, Smithy explores the power of belief in weird things and blurs the line between fantasy and fact.