“Mating,” published in 1991, usually finds its evangelists by word-of-mouth. For some, its plot points can be a tough sell: An unnamed graduate student in Botswana pursues an American anthropologist, Nelson Denoon, who is trying to form a matriarchal society in a desert village.
They came. They drank. They staged plays and argued about Shakespeare. For dozens of up-and-coming writers, actors and artists, it was nice while it lasted.
Recent “sensitivity” edits to the author’s beloved yet unabashedly disagreeable novels are all about maintaining a lucrative IP. But what difference can a few changed words really make?