by Jean M. Auel
It's the apparent belief of this novelist that life 30,000 years ago was pretty much like today's daytime serials, a sort of primordial-ooze opera. Her heroine, who was adopted by Neanderthals in her best-selling The Clan of the Cave Bear, gets thrown out of the tribe for being too pushy and sets off for a place where other free spirits are rumored to live. It turns out to be the prehistoric equivalent of Marin County. Her new home is in a cave above a valley where horses graze; she adopts a filly she calls Whinney and a lion called Baby. A hero appears. He is so good at sex—it seems to have to do with his blue eyes—that he is invited to initiate virgins. The heroine, who whiles away the hours inventing fire making with flint, horseback riding and the travois, learns Baby has misbehaved. That is, he has torn the hero's brother to shreds. But it's okay; the brother had a broken heart anyway and wanted to die. She sews up the hero's leg, and they chip flint. Finally he "pleasures" her—she has blue eyes, too. Unfortunately, all this lust makes this novel inappropriate for the 10-year-old girls who might possibly have enjoyed it otherwise. (Crown, $15.95)
Your Reaction
