Parasites Like Us

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY 23 JUN 2003

An archeological find sets off an apocalyptic epidemic in this first novel by Johnson (Emporium), an erratic, overstuffed satire that tracks the antics of a South Dakota academic. Anthropology professor Hank Hannah studies the Clovis people, a prehistoric tribe of hunter-gatherers. His theory is that their hunting habits helped kill off 35 species of large mammals. The discovery of a Clovis arrowhead helps substantiate his claim, but disaster strikes when Hannah and two graduate students, publicity hound Brent Eggers and formidable Trudy Labelle, try to dig up the remains of a Clovis male. The police appear and Hannah is arrested for assaulting the officer who defiles the grave site. His stint at a luxury low-security prison, Club Fed, is interrupted by the outbreak of a deadly epidemic, transmitted from pigs to humans and triggered when Eggers and Labelle use the Clovis arrowhead to kill a pig. The prehistoric contagion litters the Midwest with dead bodies, ushering in a bleak new age. Johnson's fertile imagination produces plenty of innovative speculation about the connection between prehistoric and modern customs, and Hannah's bumbling charm can be endearing. But wading through the chaff of the unfocused narrative including an ineffective romantic subplot in which Hannah woos a Russian botany professor is an arduous task. Johnson shows some of the outrageous flair here that made the stories in Emporium a critical success, but his elaborate concoction sags under its own weight. 5-city author tour.