Animal Husbandry Book

Meet Jane Goodall--though not the scientist who has so beautifully revealed that apes have as much capacity for love and tragedy as do their human relatives. Jane Goodall, the 30-year-old narrator of Laura Zigman's fresh and funny first novel, has a revelation of her own: that the human male has as much capacity for love and constancy as an animal with rather distant DNA--the bull. Her discovery is the result of a botched relationship with a fellow PBS executive, the charming but increasingly evasive Ray Brown. Ray doesn't so much leave Jane as slip away, leaving her in depressed confusion and him having it both ways. Jane's bitter but hilarious revelation eventually transforms her from a fast-talking talk-show booker with a giant Rolodex (and an endless fund of excuses for failing to reach Kevin Costner) by day into "Dr Marie Goodall, delusional fraudulent obsessive monkey scientist by night". In one of Animal Husbandry's many delightful (and clever) twists, the false Dr Goodall achieves a high profile and a New York Times rebuff once her article is published in Men's Times. Zigman has clearly spent some time researching human mating behaviour, which her heroine is forced to see as a dance of male deception and female hope. If one occasionally wonders whether Animal Husbandry has its origins in revenge, no matter. It's an artful, sparky one.Read More