Hunters and Gatherers

Prose (Bigfoot Dreams; Primitive People) has been steadily simplifying her work since the rather complex constructions of her earlier books, and her latest novel shows a striking advance in both economy and focus. Her protagonist, Martha, is a relentlessly literal-minded person (she's a fact checker at a chic women's magazine) whose emotional life is a mess, and who takes up, in the wake of a failed romance, with a group of zany women who have allied themselves with a contemporary Goddess cult. Their leader, Isis Moonwagon, is a sweepingly compassionate but accident-prone former academic who sees visions but has to fight hard to keep her often brutally cynical troops in line (about the only thing they have in common is a profound loathing for men). Martha, a perpetual outsider, wins their trust by saving Isis from drowning during a bungled ocean ceremony at a Fire Island beach; she then stays with them on a manic expedition to visit a noted Native American healer/priestess deep in the Arizona desert. Prose has some expected fun at the expense of these well-fixed Manhattan women and their sometimes inconvenient passion for primitivism, but so acute is her ear, so exact her sense of character, that the book is wonderfully comic, with a sharp undertone of rue. These elements combine magically in the Arizona scenes, focussing on dancing and drumming ceremonies and a sweat lodge experience, seen always through poor Martha's skeptical eyes (she fakes her period to avoid the sweat lodge). The conclusion--involving a hunt for the missing teenage daughter of one of the women, and an encounter with a man who stands all the women's bitter theories on their heads--is beautifully realized, with a breathtaking and utterly unexpected flash-forward for Martha. This is civilized, witty and thoughtful entertainment, brilliantly satiric but basically sweet-natured and true. (Aug.).