Set vividly in Mexico, THE PLUMED SERPENT is a powerful, sometimes obscure, frequently overwrought novel about an Irishwoman named Kate Leslie. Traveling to Mexico after the death of her husband, she is repelled by the culture of bullfights and macho cruelty until she becomes involved with Don Cipriano, who is engaged in a revival of the old Aztec cult of the serpent-god Quetzalcoatl. She becomes a fertility goddess, marries Cipriano, and ecstatically accepts his domination of her will and her sexual self. The novel embodies the somewhat cracked views Lawrence espoused late in life about phallic power and the Nietzchean superman.