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|---|---|
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Mohrbooks Literary Agency
Sebastian Ritscher |
| Original language | |
| English | |
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| Weblink | |
| www.claire-cameron.com | |
THE LAST NEANDERTHAL
A riveting literary thriller about the perils of motherhood set at the end of the Neanderthal era.
The Last Neanderthal follows the story of the last family of Neanderthals through their final year of life, after a hard winter when their numbers are low. Girl, the oldest daughter, is just coming of age and anticipating mating at the yearly salmon run. Through hunting accidents, animal attacks, old age, and disease, their numbers dwindle until Girl is left alone to care for a foundling named Runt. In their quest to find family, they face starvation in the coming winter storms. Girl has one final chance to stop her people from becoming extinct through continuing to breed.
Alternating with Girl’s story is a contemporary drama about a young, pregnant anthropologist who has discovered the bones of Girl. What links these characters over the millennia is their experience of early motherhood, and the extremes to which it can drive young mothers. The novel integrates the relatively new notions that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens co-existed, and that they were a lot more like us than we have been led to believe. When under extreme stress, both women behave in remarkably similar ways.
In a tale as harrowing as it is hopeful, Claire Cameron explores the dark, often taboo corners of women’s lives. Her novel includes unprecedented, vivid descriptions of the experience of pregnancy and childbirth.
Claire Cameron’s reimagining of Neanderthals is buttressed by recent scientific discoveries. They are no longer seen as a primitive people who lost out to humans, but rather as one of our species, with a brain capacity 10% larger than ours, who managed to survive several hundred thousand years longer than we have so far. Many people have inherited up to 4% of their DNA from Neanderthals.
Alternating with Girl’s story is a contemporary drama about a young, pregnant anthropologist who has discovered the bones of Girl. What links these characters over the millennia is their experience of early motherhood, and the extremes to which it can drive young mothers. The novel integrates the relatively new notions that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens co-existed, and that they were a lot more like us than we have been led to believe. When under extreme stress, both women behave in remarkably similar ways.
In a tale as harrowing as it is hopeful, Claire Cameron explores the dark, often taboo corners of women’s lives. Her novel includes unprecedented, vivid descriptions of the experience of pregnancy and childbirth.
Claire Cameron’s reimagining of Neanderthals is buttressed by recent scientific discoveries. They are no longer seen as a primitive people who lost out to humans, but rather as one of our species, with a brain capacity 10% larger than ours, who managed to survive several hundred thousand years longer than we have so far. Many people have inherited up to 4% of their DNA from Neanderthals.
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Book
Published 2017-05-01 by Little, Brown |
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Book
Published 2017-05-01 by Little, Brown |