She Got ‘Old Cow’ Disease

The notion that the erratic mating behavior of humans parallels the predictable mating behavior of the animal kingdom is hardly new. What’s new in first-time novelist Laura Zigman’s funny new book, “Animal Husbandry” (The Dial Press), is a) a clever and comic theory and b) timing.

A field map on disaster dating in the late 90s, her “Old Cow / New Cow” theory--that bulls will not mate with the same cow twice and thus men dump women because they’re genetically wired to target new cows--has coincided with a period in Washington, D.C., like no other.

She knows her book tour has “Wag the Dog” and “Primary Colors” written all over it.

“The weirdest part of all this is how women are responding,” says Zigman from a Portland, Ore., hotel room, referring to the sexgate scandal. “You think we would be charging him like bulls, but we’re acting like old cows.”

Zigman’s comedy centers on her heroine, Jane Goodall, a PBS talk show talent booker in her metamorphosis from New Cow to Old Cow, and Ray, her boss, a feckless, faithless and engaged cheater whose specialty is sledgehammering women’s hearts.

Scenario sound familiar? You’ve probably heard it before because, says Zigman, it’s called an “Old-Cow story,” and as “Animal Husbandry,” states early on: “Nothing makes an Old Cow cry more than a good Old-Cow story. Their Old-Cow story.” And if you’ve been dumped, you have your very own.

Jane Goodall’s revenge is when she studies animal husbandry and transforms her theory into a runaway hit magazine column.

Zigman’s cash cow revenge--she concedes this book is autobiographically based--is that she turned a major romantic thumping nine years ago into a first book with buzz, book rights sold to 14 foreign countries, and that now she gets to commute from her Washington, D.C., home to Hollywood. (Producer Linda Obst is planning to film the story for Fox 2000.)

The second novel from this former Random House publicist, “Dating Big Bird,” has already been sold, and Zigman awaits ever greener pastures, so to speak.