Long
pulp novel written in 1984 by
Jean M. Auel. The
story, which is not why people read
Clan of the Cave Bear, centers on
Ayla, an
orphaned young
Cro-Magnon girl adopted by a clan of
Neanderthals.
There is much made of Ayla's being different from the Neanderthals, and how she and they get along (not all that well, as illustrated in a series of episodes that substitute for a plot). It has five sequels: The Valley of Horses, The Mammoth Hunters, Plains of Passage, and Shelters of Stone, the last written many years after the first books.
Clan of the Cave Bear is still in print, and is wildly popular among teenagers, especially female ones. It's not hard to see why:
- The heroine is not only a social outcast in her tribe, but is so because she's superior to the other tribespeople in ways they cannot even understand.
- The story dwells at phenomenal length on what it feels like to be in that situation.
- Ayla has a complex and involved love life, in which men variously fight over her and worship her with incredible romantic gestures.
- Each of Auel's books contains a small number of multi-page sex scenes that cross the border into the pornographic. These appear deep enough into the text that very few parents who try to get a handle on what their daughters are reading will find them before losing interest. In fact, teenage readers are likely to be praised for attempting something so apparently ambitious.
A teenage boy who skims enough of Clan of the Cave Bear to hold his own in a teenage-serious conversation among female readers his own age is off to a very good start.