The two skeletons looking into each other's eyes will stop people dead in their tracks. All we need to say is that one is a modern human and the other is Neanderthal...the two skeletons suggested a deeper relationship that could live in the realm of everyone's imagination.
Imagine this picture of the “Valdaro Lovers” – included at the end of The Last Neanderthal and cited as inspiration for author Claire Cameron – but instead of it being two human skeletons, what if it was that of a Homo Sapien male and a Neanderthal female? As the modern Eurasian genome tends to have some admixed Neanderthal ancestry, we know that the two groups could (and did) interbreed, so it is interesting to imagine under what circumstances that might have occurred. This book is Cameron's take on contact between the two groups, and while the concept is intriguing, it unfortunately falls short for me in execution.
The book is told in two parts: In the sections from forty thousand years ago, we view the world through the eyes of Girl; an adolescent female Neanderthal who is just reaching maturity, and as a clever and emotional being, her observations and actions are definitely more human than animal. In the sections from today, we follow Rose Gale; an archaeologist who has discovered a human/Neanderthal burial site, and as she must both negotiate the bureaucracy of securing funding for her dig and manage the power dynamics at the site (all while dealing with the unique challenges of being a woman in charge), Rose's storyline deliberately mirrors that of Girl – as though a Skyped conference call with a museum director has as much at stake as trying to find shelter in a winter storm. And while I really did like the parts in prehistory, the deliberate parallels and Rose's bullheadedness (which seems to cause all of her problems) just felt forced.
I recognise that Cameron's goal was to correct any lingering misconceptions that Neanderthals were knuckle-dragging beasts, or some missing link between the apes and us, so it was a useful conceit to have Rose in the present explaining to other characters what the latest research has revealed about our Neanderthal cousins. But the science is undermined by Cameron's imaginative flights: I appreciate learning that Neanderthals had a sensitive spot on their top gums that could “read” the air, but I can't believe that Girl could climb a tree, retract her top lip, and discover every warm-blooded being that passed for miles around for the past days and weeks. I really enjoyed reading about how Girl interacted with her family group, but rolled my eyes at the idea that, tangled up in sleep at night, they could share dreams and thereby discover what each other has seen and learned that day. But here's my biggest complaint: **spoiler** Cameron dangles the question, “How did 'the lovers' end up buried together?”, and then she doesn't answer it. After a brutal year that sees Girl become, presumably, “the last Neanderthal”, she rises from her winter shelter and follows the footprints of the lost human foundling, Runt, and is greeted by him and a human female. The female is afraid of Girl – definitely doesn't think of her as another humanoid – but raises her hand in friendship on Runt's say-so. The end. If this human female finds Girl beastly and frightening, is a male in their village supposed to fall in love with her? Or does Runt grow up to fall in love with her? Or does he want to be buried with her in an act of friendship? It felt wishy-washy to me for Cameron to bring the story this far and then not resolve the central question that she herself had proposed.**/spoiler**
Again, I did truly enjoy the parts from the past – Cameron weaves an interesting and exciting story of survival and humanity under harsh conditions – but the modern storyline didn't really work for me. It all evens out to a low three stars.
I really enjoyed Claire Cameron's first book, The Bear (I gave it five stars here), but after seeing so many other reviewers dismiss that as having been poorly written, I can't really defend my enjoyment of that book except to say that it touched me as a Mom: lost children in danger is every mother's worst nightmare, and that might also explain why I so enjoyed Girl's quest for survival as well. The Last Neanderthal is certainly worth a read for Girl's story, it's simply not overall enjoyable.