If you are female, under 30, working in the New York media, and have been or expect to be dumped, Laura Zigman’s Animal Husbandry (Dial Press; $22.95) is about your life. Zigman turns your heartache into a scientifically explainable behavior pattern. Her New Cow Theory is the answer to late-night cries of “Will I ever love again?” Only after you find a Bull for whom you are New Cow. Once you are known (in the Biblical sense), you’ll henceforth be Old Cow to him. Zigman gets the details right: the West Village studio, the best friend who has her calls held while you commiserate, the queasy disgust on a man’s face when you eat Häagen-Dazs out of the container. What her snappy dialogue can’t fix is the lonely inter-Bull period.

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• Archive: “Book Reviews”
• Articles by Alexandra Lange
• Table of Contents: Feb 2, 1998 issue of New York | Subscribe!