Loren and Jean Auel

Jean Auel and the books Loren loved.

The way Loren talked about Jean Auel and The Clan of the Cave Bear, and Auel's subsequent novels in her "Earth Children's" series, with such awe and reverence, led me to think that she was long dead and this series was historical, not contemporary, written early in the century, not today. Wrong!

Auel, born in Chicago in 1936, is a strong woman whose talent and personna are equally strong. She has lived in Portland, Oregon, for many years with her husband, five now-grown children, and many grandchildren, and this is where she has written all her novels. She's done most of her research in the public library there, as well as in travels across Europe, from the west to Ukraine. Her most recent research travel took her to the awesome painted white Lescaux Caves in southwestern France, which is the subject of her upcoming book "The Land of Painted Caves," due out in March 2011.

Her books are immensely popular, having sold over 40 million copies. Reviews are mostly positive, although scholars, naturally, question her research. But these are not history books, they are novels, and Auel tells a good story over time. Some reviewers call Auel the “Queen of the Ice Age” and a Time magazine review called her work 'romancing the Stone Age," in a reference to the movie.

Loren, though, talked mostly about Ayla, Auel's herione, whose odyssey through pre-historic times with the Neanderthal and Cro-Magnum peoples covers some 8 books. Auel did her research, but her novels are just that, imaginative stories, historical fiction, about life during the Pleistocene Epoch.

Auel's books drew Loren in, starting with his favorite, The Clan of the Cave Bear, a book he says in An Asperger Journey changed his way of looking at the world. The character of Ayla, a mother goddess and earth mother, a female leader who was strong, knowledgeable, resourceful, resonated profoundly with Loren, and Loren followed her every move, from cave to cave. Loren was the only person who knew about the history of Ukraine when I first learned that I would be going there for the Peace Corps. He told me all about prehistoric Ukraine, knew its landscape, cultural lineage, names of people and places. How fantastic is that, how special, how precious!

I wish Loren were here to talk more about this. I'm doing some research now on some of his favorite subjects, but it's too little, too late; too late to share with Loren, to hear his reverence for the story and for Ayla. Too late to gain in knowledge that only Loren knew, cared about, and used to sustain him on his own journey. Do you think he could be traveling with Ayla now? Do you think he's in all the places he knew and loved, traveling unimpeded and free on another awesome journey?