Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, February 21, 1991                   TAG: 9102200166
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: E-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Ben Beagle
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

AUTHOR TAKES INDECENT LIBERTIES WITH POCAHONTAS

You've got to put a little bit of sex into everything these days and that, we are told, is one of the reasons Williamsburg refused to give the author a key to the city.

This is an industrial-strength snub, as many of you native Virginians know.

Most cities in Virginia will give keys to itinerant tofu salesmen if given half the chance.

The city also told the publishers of "Pocahontas" that it was not in existence at the time Pocahontas threw her head on the chopping block - or whatever - to save Capt. John Smith from the ax.

All right. Let's get on to the sex here - and just forget all those pictures in your grade school history books that showed Pocahontas more than fully clothed and a little stand-offish, if you know what I mean.

Susan Donnell, the author of this novel, has Pocahontas and Capt. Smith fooling around in Jamestown and in London - this latter dalliance occurring when Pocahontas was married to John Rolfe, who invented the cigarette, I think.

The Associated Press quotes Donnell as saying, "It's my definite point of view that they were lovers. My instinct was there was something going on between them."

Why is it that I hear Peggy Lee singing that song about Pocahontas telling Powhatan that Capt. Smith gave her fever?

Anyway, you will have to read the book to find out how feverish this thing gets.

I know nothing about the book's author, but I do hope this is not another of those bodice-buster type novels. I mean, Pocahontas deserves better than that - whether she fooled around or not.

You know:

"Smith held her lightly as elemental lust coursed through his body and transmitted itself to hers.

" `I will never forget the way you looked in the firelight when you asked your dad for my life,' Smith said huskily, as Pocahontas began to croon a crude love ballad, a forgotten remnant of her ancient link with savagery, now wrenched to the present by desire.

"Slowly, she took down her hair. The light from the casement window turned it into a shining river of black gold."

Come on. What do you want from me? I can't get into this kind of stuff any further. I need this job. You should see my cat-food bill this month, for pete's sake.

I'm going to leave it at that, boys.

I'll wait for the movie - hoping Charlton Heston is too old to be cast as Capt. John Smith in his fooling-around-in-London days.