BINSTEAD'S SAFARI

A feminist, fabulist, magical realist romance set in London and
Africa, originally published in 1983.

After Mrs. Caliban (1982), an electrifying
story of passion between an oppressed suburban housewife and a sexy green sea
monster, Ingalls wrote this novel, featuring another underappreciated heroine
whose claustrophobic life is about to blow wide open. Millie Binstead has
begged to come along with her husband, Stan, minor academic and major creep, on
a research trip to London and then Africa. When she offers to pay her own way
from New England out of a recent inheritance, he is forced to agree. As soon as
they get to London, he dumps her at the hotel and goes off to “work”
with a colleague. Finally on her own and out in the world, Millie is not timid
and miserable but wholly reborn. Everyone she meets is struck by how
insightful, funny, and attractive she is; she is having the time of her life.
By the time they get to Africa, Stan is wondering what the hell happened to his
mousy, subservient little wife, who will now barely give him the time of day.
At this point, the book becomes a deliciously gossipy take on colonial safari
culture: the guides, the drivers, the rich tourists, the natives, the boozy,
raunchy, sometimes-gory goings-on in town, out in the bush, and up in the sky
in hot air balloons. Stan’s plan is to investigate the local myths about a Lion
God, a man with “supernatural powers in battle and medicine, and
love,” who can turn himself into the king of beasts when the going gets
tough. If such a creature exists, he may be a con artist; Stan is on his trail.
As much as it is a love story, this is also a story of revenge, which Stan
defines from the perspective of primitive folklore: “the ceremony in which
you reproduce the previous act in a slightly altered way or with a reversed
outcome, and then it cancels what took place before.” Yup, Stan, that’s
it.

Another witty, elegant story from a writer whose atavistic
vision of romantic love is resonant and deeply satisfying. Escaping the
overblown egos and endless self-indulgence of the males of their own species,
Ingalls’ women find their true soul mates elsewhere.