Books: Death of a Cacique

THE DISOBEDIENT SON (274 pp.)—François Clément—Little, Brown ($3.50).

There is a strong reciprocal attraction between the primitive and the civilized. Primitive man is hopelessly fascinated by the bright trinkets of civilization; civilized man is endlessly curious about the murky depths of the primitive mind.

This first novel is an attempt to get inside the mind of Juanito, an illiterate village Indian from the mountains of Mexico. Every tourist there has seen his like: thin-headed, with a mop of coarse black hair, large-eyed, flat-nosed, full-lipped, looking with impassive dignity from beneath a frayed straw...