FIVE HUNDRED SCORPIONS

by Shelby Hearon ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1987

Hearon's knack for stirring up tempests in small-town teapots and launching bright and attractive protagonists, so evident in the delightful A Small Town (1985), is put to use here mainly on some rather gummy but lighthearted commentary about the gender gap and the ""mother-centered culture"" of a remote Mexican mountain village. Virginia lawyer Paul Sinclair, a hidebound stickler for ordered and honorable living, has had enough of wife Peggy's breathless, untidy interest in just about everything. Paul leaves home and practice--and sons tennis-star Edward (who cheats in school) and earnest Charles (a chip off the old solid block)--to join a pair of women anthropologists who are studying an already much-studied Mexican village in order to eliminate the male bias of previous scholars. The two men, Paul and Japanese. American Nakae, are perplexed as to their roles, but the village is charming--although there's an inordinate amount of joshing by the villagers about cuckolding. (In the meantime, back in Virginia, Peggy--though still in love with Paul and miffed at his going--is visited by Paul's oldest enemy.) At this point, the mock-sociological underpinnings begin to blur, but there are weird doings in the village: a humiliating climb up a steep mountain for an all-male Aztec ceremony; rumors about a coffee additive that turns men into sheep; and Paul being bitten by one of the 500 varieties of scorpion. At the close, two broken men rally, and Peggy wins a round or two. Peggy, her pals, and an eccentric father-in-law are lively, and Paul is a likable dodo; but the work of the female scientists and the villagers are implausible and dim. All in all: pleasant but not up to Hearon's best.

Pub Date: April 1, 1987

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Atheneum

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1987

Categories: FICTION