Primitive People

Having acquired an audience of discerning readers with such novels as Household Saints and Bigfoot Dreams , Prose comes into her own with this acerbic comedy of manners. Both deliciously wicked and poignant, it is a fable of our times. Through the eyes of her protagonist Simone, an illegal immigrant from Haiti who becomes a ``caregiver'' to the children of unforgivably self-absorbed parents, Prose illuminates some of the ludicrous aspects of our culture and of the perennial battle between the sexes. Morbidly depressed 10-year-old George and six-year-old sister Maisie are the casualties of their parents' failed marriage. Their brittle, bubblehead mother Rosemary, a sculptress of absolutely no talent, has been abandoned and left nearly penniless by their father, charismatic womanizer Geoffrey, and she is pathetically trying to cope with life in the derelict Porter family mansion in upstate New York. Although she is bewildered by American culture, Simone becomes the one stable element in the household, winning the children's trust and Rosemary's patronizing affection. As she meets Geoffrey, Rosemary's friends and other members of the community, Simone sees dark links between her violence-haunted homeland and the outwardly serene community of Hudson ' s Landing. Observing the complex betrayals of which the children are ultimate victims, Simone is herself betrayed by her need for emotional connection. Prose has a ventriloquist's skill in capturing contemporary jargon and a laser eye for describing the people who spout it. She offers hilarious sendups of mall culture and of pretentious, empty socialites, seen here in a stable at the wedding of a bovine WASP heiress and a Sufi homeopath veterinarian. But most potently, she ironically contrasts the ``primitive'' aspects of Haitian society, including voodoo sacrifice, with the unconscious cruelty of upper-class parents whose treatment of two innocent children verges on the barbarous. The beautifully sustained, satiric tone of the novel darkens as Prose fashions a credible, bleak ending for her cautionary tale. (Apr.)