Binstead's Safari

February 1, 1988
After a long hiatus between the publication of the near-classic Mrs. Caliban and her recent collections of novellas, I See a Long Journey and The Pearlkillers, Ingalls has produced another novel, set in the real world of white hunters but skirting the edges of superstition and myth. The reader follows folklorist Stan Binstead and his unwanted wife Millie into the bush and watches her transformation, by virtue of a new haircut and a couple of smashing outfits, from dependence to self-awareness. Millie becomes the admired center of the expedition; more significantly, she meets and falls in love with Henry Lewis, the fabled hunter about whose person has grown up precisely the lore that Stan has set out to research. Nicknamed Simba (Bantu for lion), Lewis is envied, even hated, by the other hunters, but made one of their own by the beasts of the bush, a rite of passage he transfers to the woman he has chosen. As the hunting partyfrozenlooks on, a lion materializes from the thicket of trees, glides up to Millie, as if to memorize her, then suddenly turns and streaks away. The scene glows, like a painting in primary color. Deep in the forest a dark and subtle magic is taking place, and thereby hangs this impressive tale, taut with the thrill of the hunt and the spell of the unknown.

Starred review from November 15, 2018
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.

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Starred review from December 15, 2018
In Ingalls' outstanding if underappreciated fiction, women can change. Millie Binstead, the wife of philandering academic Stan, who specializes in folklore, convinces him to let her come along on his safari, on which he intends to ferret out reported lion worship in East Africa, hoping to turn his findings into a book. During a three-week preliminary stay in London, Stan continues his infidelities (to which he feels entitled, particularly after Millie's anger at their inability to conceive a child). Millie, meanwhile, gets a haircut and buys clothes, jewelry, and makeup, transforming herself into someone Stan scarcely recognizes. And this is just the start. In Africa, she meets Henry Lewis, known locally as Simba Lewis for his bravery in lion hunting, and she opens herself to love. Millie's transformation stuns Stan, as she makes plans to live the rest of her life fully until tragedy intervenes. In clear, elegant prose, Ingalls vividly evokes both the city life of London and the wilderness of Africa, each beautiful in its way, as she explores myth and the human-animal link. With its memorable characters, who face life in their own ways, this is haunting fiction that will linger in memory.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)