A review by sdwoodchuck
Ancient of Days by Michael Bishop

3.25

 

Lloyd Paul lets his ex wife--famed commercial artist RuthClaire--live in his old home, because secretly he's hoping to rekindle their past romance. When he receives a call about an intruder in the old Peach orchard, he thinks this might be his chance. Instead, his intruder turns out to be a proto-human homo habilis, thought extinct for millions of years. Where did he come from? How human is he? How can RuthClaire possibly be falling in love with this thing she's named Adam? And why is it that Lloyd finds himself considering this man his friend?

Meanwhile, Adam and RuthClaire's relationship draws the ire of the scientific community who wants Adam caged and studied; of civil rights groups who insist RuthClaire must be exploiting him as a kind of slave labor; and of the Ku Klux Klan, who know only that Adam is not white, and by no means human, in their book.

After absolutely loving Bishop's Brittle Innings, this was the only one of his novels I could find at my local used book store. I started out completely baffled by this one, but by around fifty pages in, I was completely on board with this story that aims to explore what it means to be human... Only for it to take another turn around 2/3 in, and fumble much of the goodwill it had earned from me. Here is a tonal misstep so severe, leading into some philosophical navelgazing so tiresome, that it really threatens to sink the whole endeavor.

Overall Grade: B-. The first two thirds are really good stuff, absolutely ballsy, but what would have been an easy A faceplants in the last act.