This novel is a 1992 expansion of Isaac Asimov's 1958 short story by the same name, by Asimov and equally famous sci-fi author Robert Silverberg. The premise is that a private company has found a way to take a Neanderthal boy 40,000 years into the future, which in this case is around 2100, and it rapidly becomes clear that there are, well, issues with that, to use a properly 1990's word. Most of the story is narrated by one Miss Fellowes, the woman hired to be a sort of full-time nurse for the boy. There are also "interchapters" from the perspective of the Neanderthal group from which the boy is plucked.
I found the book a bit of a curiosity. The authors' attempts to reconcile 1958 and 1992 gender norms in the ways the 21st-century characters relate to one another in thought, word and deed ranged from semi-believable to amusing to downright unmotivated. And speaking of gender and unmotivated, what is the deal with Dr. Marianne Levien? Her character raises a good many unanswered questions in the first chapter, and she resurfaces, tantalizingly, toward the end, only to play no role whatsoever in what eventually happens. Is her entire function in the novel to embody the "cold bitch" stereotype? Seriously? The themes of ugliness and other-ness and the rarity and value of humans' ability to comprehend one another accurately are still themes that shine through and help make up for some of this weirdness, though.
The remake I'd really like to see of this story would involve reconstructing a Neanderthal child genetically, rather than actually grabbing him from the past. That would eliminate some of the problems that the fictional scientists inexplicably (to me) fail to plan for, in this story while allowing other, more subtle and interesting issues to arise.
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