The first novel by famous anecdotal sex researcher Hite sends up American manners, mores, and media sometimes delightingly as her Ariadne, sort of a female Candide from heaven, and Jupiter (Ariadne's dog) visit Earth...Sequences set in heaven are the most amusing as when Ariadne rubs shoulders with Truman, Lenin, and Cleopatra and her pet asp, Jennifer: Gertrude Stein keeps trying to impress Ariadne's Innocent Abroad with the appropriateness of wearing sensible shoes, while Cleo scoffs, reapplies makeup, and proceeds to sleep with George Orwell, all the while lamenting her lost Antony. On Earth, Ariadne catches hell from media critics representing their powerful, moneyed bosses. Her crime: having written The Meaning of It All, a book of social criticism demonstrating the destruction of the environment and many species and the facts that inequality abounds and that women, according to her research, are unhappy and dissatisfied with their husbands. The last, of course, is what draws the press attacks; meanwhile, Ariadne finds love and happiness despite it all."" - Booklist.