FICTION

THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES by Lionel Shriver (Farrar, Straus & Giroux: $17.95; 361 pp.). Lionel Shriver’s first novel is splendid. Beautiful Gray Kaiser, a 59-year-old American anthropologist, returns to the site of her first great triumph in Kenya to film a documentary. She is accompanied by Erroll McEchern, her younger assistant, who has worshiped her from afar for years.

Erroll’s fantasies about both Gray (she’s part Margaret Mead, part Bionic Woman), the first trip that she’s now documenting, and her relationship with the crazy American explorer whom she’d discovered ruling the lost tribe of Il-Ororen, merges into the hilarious, exotic facts of her past.

Assigned to Gray’s Kenyan documentary is Raphael Sarasola, a graduate assistant. He’s 24, arrogant, handsome and to Erroll’s amazement, Gray--for the first time in her life--is smitten.

Back in Boston, in the jungle of academe, Erroll observes the progress of their affair. Grand, energetic writing sweeps this story of love and survival right along.