1. Summary

2. Plot

3. Critical Reviews and Reader Popularity

4. References

Summary

Anthropologists discover a remnant of our ancestral genus Australopithecus; pitiful creatures enslaved by a backward African village shunned by its neighbours for its cruel practices. It is the greatest anthropological discovery ever made, but who will guarantee that the rest of the world will treat Thursday and her friends any better than the slave-masters? The protagonist of the novel is a paleoanthropologist who finds an odd anecdote about imported apes in her great-great-grandfather's account of growing up as a slave in Mississippi. This discovery piques her curiosity, prompting her to make a small-scale excavation of ape bones. What she finds instead are several complete skeletons of australopithecines buried in the 1850s. The first section is about her and her colleagues slowly assimilating the implications while they try to keep the discovery a secret, interspersed with bits from the point of view of an Australopithecus kept as a slave in an isolated village. In the second and third sections, the paleontologist makes an expedition to Africa to look for living Australopithecus, ultimately resulting in contact with the Australopithecus.^[3]

Plot

The novel is presented in three parts:

Part One Introduces the protagonist, Dr. Barbara Marchando (a paleoanthropologist), her African-American family history and heritage. Barbara is visiting her family during Thanksgiving, recovering from a recent, bitter divorce, prompting her to seek time alone with her thoughts to explore the home's attic storage. The discovery and reading of her ancestor Zebulon's diary produces an account of the arrival of strange, new animal slaves, and death from disease, and provides motivation for performing a dig on the grounds of the family's Mississippi home, a former plantation. The dig is originally intended to identify the approximate location of a pre-Civil War slave graveyard rumoured to be located on the grounds. Site surveys are conducted using metal detectors hoping to find underground clusters of coffin nails and likely targets mapped for excavation. The dig proceeds and a large section of the graveyard are found, a smaller section, separated from most of the graves, yields skeletal remains at first believed to be diseased or otherwise disfigured individuals. Closer examination reveals that each of the odd skeletons shows the same cranial disfigurement and resemble skulls known in fossil records as Australopithecus; a human ancestral species that died out some 1,400,000 years ago. But the remains are at most two centuries old. Further research and analysis of the bizarre remains confirm the relatively recent (150~200 years ago) death of each skeleton. Also, they are classified as an example of the sub-species Australopithecus boisei. The skeletons' classification and confirmed recent dates of death are impossible according to the accepted fossil record. Despite attempts to maintain a low profile pending further research, word leaks out of the bizarre discovery. Quickly, sceptics^[4] express disbelief and ridicule of the doctor's conclusions, putting her reputation and career in jeopardy.

Part Two Old records involving the Mississippi town's slave trade disclose the sale of a new, heartier type of slave to the former plantation's master. The vessel bringing the 'new type slave' cargo is listed by name through the records and its port of origin in Africa is identified. Dr. Marchando wins grant funding to visit the African port city and search for traces of what might have been a small enclave of humans displaying traits of an early human ancestor. Over several excursions to nearby villages without luck, a promising lead points to a remote, isolated and unfriendly group of villagers as a source of 'worker beasts'. A translator, armed escort, Dr. Marchando and several research companions make plans to locate and visit the isolated group. Having located the remote village, Dr. Marchando and the translator question the chief about stories of white men coming long ago to buy 'worker beasts' from the village and if they might help find where such 'beasts' lived. An exchange of goods is offered for information and agreed upon between the translator and the village chief. Within moments, and to the astonishment of the doctor and team, a young, dirty, naked and malnourished but utterly alive Australopithecus boisei female is led by collar and leash into the hut and handed over as purchased property. Aghast, Dr. Marchando realizes she has unintentionally traded a few goods and tools for a living fossil of humanity. The chief advises the trade is fair for such a specimen and most of the village has at least one beast to perform work they avoid. As the translator explains that negating or challenging the exchange with the chief would prove dangerous, Dr. Marchando and team leave the village with the nervous, but otherwise docile female. The doctor and team set about making plans to return to the port city and sedate the female while arrangements are made to transition her to Europe and finally the United States. The female Boisei is also given the name 'Thursday.' This is both a reference to the day she was found, and is a literary reference to the novel Robinson Crusoes 'Man Friday''.

Part Three Despite efforts to maintain secrecy, word leaks of the recovery of a living Australopithecus boisei. Upon arrival to a research hospital facility outside Washington D.C., and publication of the find, the shock to the scientific community and general public is intense. Dr. Marchando and other researchers are successful in teaching Thursday communication by sign language. Thursday is soon found capable of reasoning, compassion and understanding abstract ideas like time and family; far beyond any ape's cognition. The question arises, what is Thursday? She obviously isn't a modern Homo Sapien and is clearly not an ape Hominidae. Genetic testing of Thursday also reveals she's partly hybrid from past interbreeding of her recent ancestors and human captors, further confusing her status as a species. Conflicting ideas on the rights of Thursday and her kind begin taking shape in the scientific community and public. They're seen as better substitutes for chimpanzees in medical testing, an easily trained labor force, potentially living organ banks, essentially a future slave race to be considered as beasts or property. Other research centers begin plans to obtain more boisei from Africa, as specimens for study and zoos. For Dr. Marchando, herself the descendant of slaves, this is unthinkable. Authorities begin efforts to gain access and control of Thursday in the "interest of science", putting her safety and life in danger. Dr. Marchando, desperate to protect Thursday and prove she should be treated as human, tracks Thursday's ovulation and secretly conducts an artificial insemination using sperm frozen years ago by her ex-husband. The female Thursday, now several months pregnant, ignites a legal and moral firestorm of whether to permit her pregnancy to come full term. Before a legal decision can be reached, Thursday births a healthy, mixed female child resembling both her and a human biological father, thus demonstrating Thursday's full genetic compatibility with modern humanity.

The novel draws comparisons between the conventional thinking of centuries ago that humans from Africa weren't truly human beings worthy of rights. The novel's ending is left open for interpretation on what it means to be human and where a line, if any, can be drawn between ourselves and our ancestors.

Critical Reviews and Reader Popularity

While the novel was well received by critics and cited for attention to scientific details, the novel did not prove very popular with a broad reader base. It has been re-discovered in recent years, gaining more of a following among readers as discoveries of, as then unknown, sub-species of humanity have come to light since 1988; particularly the discovery of the 'Hobbit' Homo Floresiensis, and Denisova Hominins.^[5]

References

Reader Reviews from the website "[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2265968.Orphan_of_Creation Good Reads]"

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