“When the girls were reseated the way Mallory wanted them and had settled down, I said, “Okay, when we broke off, we’d just heard about the mongrel races. What exactly were these?” This was an easy one, and Gilda of the stringy dark hair stuck up her hand first. “These were the non-evolved races. There were hordes of these non-quite-human types who were black and yellow and brown and red – and every mixture”“(page 115)

This is a short book and an easy read – I blazed through it in less than a day. But the subject matter is so compelling that I found myself going back and reading sections and even entire chapters over again.

Because of my studies in Hindu and Buddhist philosophy, this book held a special fascination for me. It explores reincarnation in a world historically very different from ours. The author, Daniel Quinn, emphasizes that he has no belief in reincarnation, but I found his rendering of it raised some compelling questions.

Mallory, the survivor of an automobile accident, comes out of a coma with a peculiar form of amnesia – she believes she is someone else. She believes she is deaf and reads lips, even though she has fully functional hearing. She is terrified by the people around her. Jason Tull, a trust fund kid with a interest in reincarnation, believes that she has fallen into an identity from a past life. He contacts her and offers to help.

I found parts of the book puzzling and the main character was stilted and bizarre (but I supsect that was the whole point). I’m not going to give a further synopsis because to give away the plot would dim some of the book’s power.

Suffice to say, this is a book that will make you think. Long and hard.