SOURCE: "An Evolutionary Jungle," in Los Angeles Times Book Review, March 27, 1994, pp. 2, 11.

Prose is an American novelist, short story writer, and educator known for fiction in which she blends elements of realism and supernaturalism. In the following review, she positively assesses The Great Divorce.

Valerie Martin's The Great Divorce is the kind of fiction that can briefly refocus and broaden the scope of what we notice about the world. Not long after finishing the novel, I found myself paying rapt attention to a TV advertisement for a collection of videotapes that seemed made up of scenes of snarling jungle creatures ripping each other to shreds. "Find out why we call them animals," droned the portentous voice-over.

The question of who we are to call them animals, of what distinguishes us from our near neighbors on the evolutionary ladder, is one that has frequently engaged Valerie Martin—in her...