THE WOMAN WHO LIVES IN THE EARTH

  Swain Wolfe, HarperCollins, $18

  (192;) ISBN 0-06-017411-0

Originally self-published, Wolfe's disarm- ingly simple novel, part Aesopian fable, part environmentalist parable, clearly as- aspires to the timeless, ageless stature of The Little Prince. In a time before the ad-vent of machines, a girl named Sarah and her farmer parents, Aesa and Ada, find their simple life threatened by a drought that has left their valley desperate for water. On a trip to town for supplies, Sarah attracts the attention of a mysteri-ous person known as the Lizard Woman, in whom Sarah strikes a visceral, irra-tional fear. The Lizard Woman makes Sarah's presence known to three equally mysterious riders, the town's lawkeepers, known as the Triune. Why are they so suspicious of a small child? Maybe they know that Sarah befriended  a magical fox named Marishan Borison, who en-courages Sarah's latent abilities to con-nect with the natural world. Hounded, Sarah must then divine the true source of the drought before the Triune and a mob from town, convinced of her demonic qualities, sacrifice her in a misguided at-tempt to bring on the rain. Wolfe's un-adorned prose pushes this book toward the boundaries of young-adult fiction, as does his rather easy celebration of the virtues of simplicity and childlike wis- dom over the fearful, paranoid supersti-tions of the throng. But the tale, charm-ingly told, should reawaken readers to the pleasures of allegory.

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