'No Noah this time,' said God firmly, and rather crossly, 'no exceptions, righteous or otherwise.'

But after the nuclear holocaust and the Second Flood sent by God to clear things up once and for all, it transpires that Calvin Cohn, paleologist and rabbi's son, has inadvertently been left behind.

Shipwrecked on to a fabulous desert island, Cohn falls in with a community of chimpanzees. As they attempt to build - and beget - a new society, Malamud's comic masterpiece darkens into a series of savage, profound and enthralling revelations.