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Euphoria Paperback – April 14, 2015

4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 12,701 ratings

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A New York Times Bestseller

Winner of the 2014 Kirkus Prize

Winner of the 2014 New England Book Award for Fiction

A Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award

A Best Book of the Year for:

New York Times Book Review, Time, NPR, Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly, Newsday, Vogue, New York Magazine, Seattle Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, The Guardian, Kirkus Reviews, Amazon, Publishers Weekly, Our Man in Boston, Oprah.com, Salon

Euphoria is Lily King’s nationally bestselling breakout novel of three young, gifted anthropologists of the ‘30’s caught in a passionate love triangle that threatens their bonds, their careers, and, ultimately, their lives. Inspired by events in the life of revolutionary anthropologist Margaret Mead, Euphoria is "dazzling ... suspenseful ... brilliant...an exhilarating novel.”—Boston Globe

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“I loved this book.”—Ann Patchett “Wonderful, witty, heartfelt.”—Washington Post “King is brilliant.”—New York Times Book Review “Beautifully written and carefully observed . . . King is a wildly talented writer.” —Chicago Tribune “Splendid . . . Powerful.” —The New York Times Book Review

Editorial Reviews

Review

Winner of the 2014 Kirkus Prize

Winner of the 2014 New England Book Award for Fiction

A Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award

New York Times Book Review 10 Best Books of 2014; TIME Top 10 Fiction Books of 2014; New York Times Book Review 100 Notable Books of 2014; NPR Best Books of 2014; Entertainment Weekly’s 10 Best Fiction Books of 2014; Washington Post Top 50 Fiction Books of 2014; Kirkus Best of 2014; Amazon 100 Best of 2014 #16; Publishers Weekly Best Fiction Books of 2014; Our Man in Boston’s Best of 2014; Oprah.com 15 Must Reads of 2014; Buzzfeed 32 Most Beautiful Book Covers of 2014; A Vogue Top 10 Book of 2014; A New York magazine Best Book of the Year; Seattle Times Top Books of 2014; San Francisco Chronicle Top 10 Books of 2014

“
Euphoria is a meticulously researched homage to Mead’s restless mind and a considered portrait of Western anthropology in its primitivist heyday. It’s also a taut, witty, fiercely intelligent tale of competing egos and desires in a landscape of exotic menace—a love triangle in extremis…The steam the book emits is as much intellectual as erotic…and King’s signal achievement may be to have created satisfying drama out of a quest for interpretive insight…King is brilliant on the moral contradictions that propelled anthropological encounters with remote tribes…In King’s exquisite book, desire—for knowledge, fame, another person—is only fleetingly rewarded.”—Emily Eakin, New York Times Book Review (cover review)

"It’s refreshing to see the world’s most famous anthropologist brought down to human scale and placed at the center of this svelte new book by Lily King. “Euphoria” is King’s first work of historical fiction. For this dramatic new venture, she retains all the fine qualities that made her three previous novels insightful and absorbing, but now she’s working on top of a vast body of scholarly work and public knowledge. And yet “Euphoria” is also clearly the result of ferocious restraint; King has resisted the temptation to lard her book with the fruits of her research. Poetic in its compression and efficiency, “Euphoria” presumes some familiarity with Mead’s biography for context and background, and yet it also deviates from that history in promiscuous ways...King keeps the novel focused tightly on her three scientists, which makes the glimpses we catch of their New Guinea subjects all the more arresting...Although King has always written coolly about intense emotions, here she captures the amber of one man’s exquisite longing for a woman who changed the way we look at ourselves."—Ron Charles,
Washington Post

"Atmospheric and sensual, with startling images throughout,
Euphoria is an intellectually stimulating tour de force."—NPR.com

"This novel is as concentrated as orchid food, packing as much narrative power and intellectual energy into its 250 pages as novels triple its size."
—Marion Winik,
Newsday

“Euphoria is at once romantic, exotic, informative, and entertaining.”—
Reader’s Digest summer reading list)

"It's smart and steamy and like the best historical fiction, it made me want to read about Mead."—
USA Today's Summer's Hottest Titles

"This year's winner Book I Read In One Sitting Because I happened to Read The First Page...a novel of ideas and also a novel of emotions: the titular one but also envy, hubris, despair, and above all desire—how liberating or scandalous it can be, how linked to intellect, how dictatorial."—Kathryn Schulz,
New York, Best Books of the Year

“King reveals a startlingly vulnerable side to Mead, suggesting an elegant parallel between novelist and archeologist: In scrutinizing the lives of others, we discover ourselves.”—
Vogue Top 10 Books of 2014

"Enthralling . . . From Conrad to Kingsolver, the misdeeds of Westerners have inspired their own literary subgenre, and in King’s insightful, romantic addition, the work of novelist and anthropologist find resonant parallel: In the beauty and cruelty of others, we discover our own.”—
Vogue

“You need know not one thing about 1930s cultural anthropology, or about the late, controversial anthropologists Margaret Mead and Reo Fortune and Gregory Bateson (Mead’s second and third husbands) to delight in King’s novel. Her superb coup is to have imagined a story loosely founded on the intertwined lives of the three that instantly becomes its own, thrilling saga.”—
San Francisco Chronicle, Top 10 Books of 2014

"King's superb coup is to have imagined a story loosely founded on the intertwined lives of the above three that instantly becomes its own, thrilling saga - while provoking a detective's curiosity about its sources....King builds an intense, seductive, sexual and intellectual tension among the three: This taut, fraught triangulation is the novel's driving force. There are so many exhilarating elements to savor in
Euphoria. It moves fast. It's grit-in-your-teeth sensuous. The New Guinean bush and its peoples - their concerns, their ordeals - confront us with fierce, tangible exactness, with dignity and wit. So do the vagaries of anthropological theories, rivalries, politics. Observations are unfailingly acute, and the book is packed with them....It's a brave, glorious set piece. By the end of Euphoria, this reader sighed with wistful satisfaction, wishing the book would go on. Brava to Lily King."—Joan Frank,San Francisco Chronicle

"It’s the rare novel of ideas that devours its readers’ attention. More often, as with Eleanor Catton’s
The Luminaries or Gravity’s Rainbow, we work our way through these books carefully and with frequent pauses, rather than gulping them down in long, thirsty drafts. It’s not a literary form known for its great romances, either, although of course love and sex play a role in most fictional characters’ lives. Lily King’s Euphoria, a shortish novel based on a period in the life of pioneering anthropologist Margaret Mead, is an exception. At its center is a romantic triangle, and it tells a story that begs to be consumed in one or two luxurious binges...King is a sinewy, disciplined writer who wisely avoids the temptation to evoke the overwhelming physicality of the jungle (the heat, the steam, the bugs) by generating correspondingly lush thickets of language. Her story...sticks close to the interlocking bonds that give the novel its tensile power."—Laura Miller, Salon

“Lily King has built her reputation as a gifted novelist steadily over three books. Her fourth,
Euphoria—a smart, sexy, concise work inspired by anthropologist Margaret Mead—should solidify the critical approval and bring her a host of new readers.”—Cleveland Plain Dealer

“Among the plethora of mysteries and assorted fiction that flow from Maine, it’s a rare novel that rises to the level of
Euphoria...a fascinating, multi-layered character study of people under duress....the writing...sweeps you away....Put Euphoria in your book bag for those trips to the beach. You’ll be glad you did."—Portland Herald Press

Masterful...
Euphoria begins so deep in the action that the reader is captured on Page 1... a thrilling and beautifully composed novel...A great novelist is like an anthropologist, examining what humans do by habit and custom. King excels in creating vignettes from Nell’s fieldwork as well as from the bitter conversation of the three love-torn collaborators, making the familiar strange and the strange acceptable. This is a riveting and provocative novel, absolutely first-rate."—Seattle Times

"Exciting...a wonderfully vivid and perceptive tale...King’s prose sparkles...The upriver experiences of her characters feel thoroughly authentic —fascinating, uncomfortable, always dangerous, sometimes even euphoric."—
Minneapolis Star Tribune

"Splendid...compelling, intelligent...filled with searing shocks...breaks the heart."—
Tampa Bay Times

“Lily King has taken this high-octane collaboration and turned it into an intellectual romance novel…the effect is hallucinatory – this is a trip of a novel…Hot stuff. In every way.”—Book Reporter

"A haunting novel of love, ambition, and obsession...unforgettable."—
AudioFile

"Inspired by an event in the life of Margaret Mead, this novel tells the story of three young anthropologists in 1930s New Guinea...This three-way relationship is complex and involving, but even more fascinating is the depiction of three anthropologists with three entirely diverse ways of studying another culture...These differences, along with professional jealousy and sexual tension, propel the story toward its inevitable conclusion...Recommended for fans of novels about exploration as myth and about cultural clashes, from Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness to Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart."—
Library Journal (starred review)

"The love lives and expeditions of controversial anthropologists Margaret Mead, Reo Fortune, and Gregory Bateson are fictionalized and richly reimagined in New England Book Award winner King’s (Father of the Rain) meaty and entrancing fourth book...King’s immersive prose takes center stage. The fascinating descriptions of tribal customs and rituals, paired with snippets of Nell’s journals—as well as the characters’ insatiable appetites for scientific discovery—all contribute to a thrilling read that, at its end, does indeed feel like 'the briefest, purest euphoria.'"—
Publishers Weekly(starred review)

“Set between the First and Second World Wars, the story is loosely based on events in the life of Margaret Mead. There are fascinating looks into other cultures and how they are studied, and the sacrifices and dangers that go along with it. This is a powerful story, at once gritty, sensuous, and captivating.”—
Booklist

"Atmospheric...A small gem, disturbing and haunting."—
Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“There are some novels that take you by the hand with their lovely prose alone; there are those that pull you in with sensual renderings of time and place and a compelling story; and there are still others that seduce you solely with their subject matter. But it is a rare novel indeed that does all of the above at once and with complete artistic mastery. Yet this is precisely what Lily King has done in her stunningly passionate and gorgeously written
Euphoria. It is simply one of the finest novels I’ve read in years, and it puts Lily King firmly in the top rank of our most accomplished novelists.”
— Andre Dubus III

“With
Euphoria, Lily King gives us a searing and absolutely mesmerizing glimpse into 1930’s New Guinea, a world as savage and fascinating as Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, where obsessions rise to a feverish pitch, and three dangerously entangled anthropologists will never be the same again. Jaw-droppingly, heart-stoppingly beautiful. I loved this book.”—Paula McLain, author of The Paris Wife

“I have come to expect Lily King’s nuanced explorations of the human heart, but in this novel she pulled me in to the exotic world of a woman anthropologist working with undiscovered tribes in 1930s New Guinea and I was totally captivated.
Euphoria is a great book! So great, that I stayed up late to finish it."—Karl Marlantes

“Writers are childlike in their enthusiasm about other writers’ good work. They’re thinking: How’d they ever think of that? That’s amazing/beautifully written/true! Imagine all the effort that went into pulling this off. Could I do something this original/surprising/moving? I’m always happy to read Lily King, and I particularly enjoyed reading
Euphoria.” –Ann Beattie

“Fresh, brilliantly structured, and fully imagined, this novel radically transforms a story we might have known, as outsiders—but now experience, though Lily King's great gifts, as if we'd lived it.”
—Andrea Barrett

“Lily King delves into the intellectual flights and passions of three anthropologists – as complex, rivalrous and brutal as any of the cultures they study.
Euphoria is a brilliantly written book."—Alice Greenway

A CBS News "Must-have titles for your summer reading list"; An O, the Oprah Magazine, “10 Titles To Pick Up Now”; A Marie Claire "novel that needs to be in your beach bag"; A USA Today pick for Summer's Hottest Titles"; A National Geographic Ultimate Summer #TripLit Reading List; A Boston Globe Summer Reading Suggestion; A Salon pick for Best Book of the Year (so far); A St. Louis Post Dispatch "Books to carry on the road this summer"; Reader’s Digest Summer Reading List, An Observer (UK) Best holiday reads 2014; An Indie Next Pick for June

About the Author

Lily King is the author of the novels The Pleasing Hour, The English Teacher, and Father of the Rain, a New York Times Editor’s Choice and winner of the New England Book Award for Fiction. King is the recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award and the Maine Fiction Award twice. She lives with her husband and children in Maine.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Grove Press; Reprint edition (April 14, 2015)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 288 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0802123708
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0802123701
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 11.2 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.4 x 0.8 x 8.1 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 12,701 ratings

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Lily King
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Lily King grew up in Massachusetts and received her B.A. in English Literature from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and her M.A. in Creative Writing from Syracuse University. She has taught English and Creative Writing at several universities and high schools in this country and abroad.

Lily’s first novel, The Pleasing Hour (1999) won the Barnes and Noble Discover Award and was a New York Times Notable Book and an alternate for the PEN/Hemingway Award. Her second, The English Teacher, was a Publishers Weekly Top Ten Book of the Year, a Chicago Tribune Best Book of the Year, and the winner of the Maine Fiction Award. Her third novel, Father of the Rain (2010), was a New York Times Editors Choice, a Publishers Weekly Best Novel of the Year and winner of both the New England Book Award for Fiction and the Maine Fiction Award. Lily's new novel, Euphoria, was released in June 2014. It has drawn significant acclaim so far, being named an Amazon Book of the Month, on the Indie Next List, and hitting numerous summer reading lists from The Boston Globe to O Magazine and USA Today. Reviewed on the cover of The New York Times, Emily Eakin called Euphoria, “a taut, witty, fiercely intelligent tale of competing egos and desires in a landscape of exotic menace.”

Lily is the recipient of a MacDowell Fellowship and a Whiting Writer's Award. Her short fiction has appeared in literary magazines including Ploughshares and Glimmer Train, as well as in several anthologies.

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Customers say

Customers find the book well-written and descriptive. They describe the story as captivating, thought-provoking, and dramatic. The characters are portrayed as deeply realized and believable, with sharply contrasting personalities. The anthropological viewpoint of respecting and appreciating various cultures is appreciated.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

727 customers mention "Readability"611 positive116 negative

Customers enjoy the book's writing style. They find it well-written and descriptive, with a beautiful use of verbs. Readers describe the book as an intellectual read that explores cultural differences and intimate relationships between a man and woman. The writing is described as brilliant, inspiring, and magnificent.

"...Lily King is obviously a brilliant and inspired writer, and I felt the same way when I was reading Euphoria (inspired, not brilliant (I wish!))...." Read more

"...He learns languages easily and he dives right in and practically lives with the men. He takes his notes after the fact...." Read more

"...It is the most exquisite instrument. I’ve not seen another like it...." Read more

"...With Lily King's writing here so incredibly atmospheric, plus the research was so well-done, there were many detailed descriptions that honestly..." Read more

612 customers mention "Story quality"612 positive0 negative

Customers find the story engaging and thought-provoking. They appreciate the intelligent exploration of underlying ideas and the depth of social science details. The book is described as an interesting read with insightful observations and life lessons.

"...Lily King is obviously a brilliant and inspired writer, and I felt the same way when I was reading Euphoria (inspired, not brilliant (I wish!))...." Read more

"...point of view alternating between Nell and Bankson propels the story forward at a good clip, while reaching back to characters’ formative years...." Read more

"...This book is dense with the details of a social science and the passion of native peoples, and a devastating romantic triangle. Fen has a temper...." Read more

"...It is such an intriguing thing, a crisscross of thin bamboo slats with small snail shells tied on in certain places...." Read more

388 customers mention "Suspenseful story"299 positive89 negative

Customers enjoy the suspenseful story with its sexual undertones and good characters. They find the emotional sweep uplifting, and the themes fascinating and intellectually stimulating. The novel is romantic at times, bordering on melodrama. Readers are deeply invested in the potential relationship between Nell and Bankson. Overall, they describe the book as riveting, fascinating, and thought-provoking.

"...It’s the fascinating and dramatic tale of a love triangle, set in 1930’s New Guinea...." Read more

"...a social science and the passion of native peoples, and a devastating romantic triangle. Fen has a temper...." Read more

"...I was thoroughly invested in the potential relationship between Nell and Bankson...." Read more

"...advertised as the change agent, she herself remains steady, almost boringly predictable...." Read more

263 customers mention "Character development"214 positive49 negative

Customers enjoy the well-developed characters and their complex relationships. They find the three main characters believable, with sharply contrasting personalities and irresistible chemistry. The author skillfully captures the psyches of three individuals, exploring the psyches as they deal with life experiences. The book explores human nature and puts readers in close touch with three anthropologists.

"...propels the story forward at a good clip, while reaching back to characters’ formative years...." Read more

"...Rather, the New York Times appeal is the setting and characters, namely thinly disguised portraits of Margaret Mead, Reo Fortune, and Gregory..." Read more

"...fiction, I am looking for well-rounded, complex characters convincingly interacting in a historical setting and engaging in some sort of adventure..." Read more

"...and it’s emotional and captivating because of the interplay between the major characters: Nell, Fen, and Bankson...." Read more

32 customers mention "Anthropological viewpoint"26 positive6 negative

Customers appreciate the anthropological viewpoint of respecting and appreciating various cultures. They find it an exhilarating read that criticizes early anthropology academia. The book blends romance, social science, and violence in its exploration of the 1930s fieldwork. Readers mention the author's perspective on early anthropologists and their interactions with aboriginal cultures.

"...perhaps this bit tells us a bit more about the tribe, reinforces Bankson’s humanistic outlook, and help complete the portrait of an anthropologist...." Read more

"...Second, I do look for historical and ecological accuracy since I do read HF to learn something new about historical settings and events...." Read more

"...jungles of New Guinea, transporting us to tribes and cultures virtually untouched by modernity...." Read more

"...I loved the Anthropological viewpoint of respecting and appreciating various cultures, rather than judging what you discover...." Read more

32 customers mention "Anthropology"26 positive6 negative

Customers enjoy the book's anthropology. They find it beautifully written and insightful, providing an evocative glimpse into Margaret Mead's life and work. The author is praised for her understanding and portrayal of personal motivations. Readers describe the story as tragic and ambitious, bringing them to a new part of the world and a time. Overall, they describe it as a visionary achievement that reflects both differences and similarities.

"...Although I did not love him as a person, I loved the creation of him, the complexity of his sometimes-evil nature...." Read more

"...Good news is that this is predominantly fiction! It is based on the life of Margaret Mead, appearing here as Nell Stone, but does not trace out her..." Read more

"...The result is a visionary achievement that reflects both differences and similarities in peoples and cultures regardless of geographical location or..." Read more

"...accurate about Margaret Mead; rather, I appreciated the glimpse into her spirit and it made me want to go back to her books on my shelf with a new..." Read more

91 customers mention "Pacing"53 positive38 negative

Customers have different views on the pacing. Some find the story engaging and well-paced, with pages turning quickly. Others feel the action is slow or drags out, and the conclusion seems unsatisfactory.

"...However, the pacing was even, and I was hooked from beginning to end...." Read more

"...Admittedly, at first the reading was slow going, and I just couldn’t get into the story. Who was Bankson and why did he try to kill himself?..." Read more

"...language isn't beautiful at expense of the story, which is gripping, well-paced, and moving...." Read more

"...The pages turned swiftly. Highly recommended." Read more

34 customers mention "Education level"13 positive21 negative

Customers have different views on the book's educational level. Some find it easy to understand and not too academic, with an interesting setting unfamiliar to most. Others feel the action and characterization aren't fully developed, with superficial information and brief descriptions.

"...and though a word of warning that there are some graphic, explicit descriptions in here that might be a turn off for some...." Read more

"With Euphoria, Lily King tells a compelling love story for mature, thinking adults...." Read more

"...The descriptions of these things are brief and unexpected...." Read more

"...than the reader can actually feel when action and characterization aren't fully developed ...." Read more

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Top reviews from the United States

  • Reviewed in the United States on January 24, 2018
    I usually finish a book, and write the review the next day, at the very latest. This time, I’ve been ruminating about and contemplating what to write, not agonizing, but definitely obsessing a little, for over a week. I needed this time, because I loved this story and these characters so much. Lily King is obviously a brilliant and inspired writer, and I felt the same way when I was reading Euphoria (inspired, not brilliant (I wish!)). It’s the fascinating and dramatic tale of a love triangle, set in 1930’s New Guinea. The three characters involved are anthropologists, two men and a woman. While they’re experiencing their own desire-fueled, jealous emotional turbulence, they’re exploring, and documenting the culture and customs of the Tam tribe, including the gender-bending roles and rituals between the men and women of the tribe. Nell Stone, the woman, is married to Schuyler Fenwick (Fen), and they’ve left the Mumbanyo tribe (“fierce warriors”) because Nell couldn’t relate to, or tolerate the tribe’s violent and aggressive nature. Fen, however, resents her because they left. He also resents her accomplishment. She has written a best seller, and is currently a famous anthropologist. She has kept her maiden name. He seems to feel like he’s merely regarded as Nell Stone’s husband. She wants to stay married to him. She wants very much to have a child. There have been some tragic and dark incidents involving babies, Nell’s own, and the babies of the Mumbanyo tribe. These incidents torture and haunt Nell.
    Let’s get the one complaint out of the way (not enough to subtract a star, or even a fraction of a star – actually, I wish I could give this book more than five stars). Sometimes the author hints darkly at an event instead of clearly explaining. She infers. Now, some literary-type readers prefer the subtlety of inferences. I admire those who understand them. I do not consider them posers. I love the ambiguities and possibilities of an unanswered (or unanswerable) question. But, in this instance, and some others, I wish I knew more about what happened before the story opens, especially Fen’s dark past, as part of a huge family, living in isolation in the Australian outback. I’m pretty sure about the type of behaviors that this one, dark hint refers to, but not entirely sure. The resulting twist in Fen’s character, however, is more important than the particular, salacious details of his nefarious family history, and his acceptance and expectation of evil and violence in every civilization steers his actions as an adult anthropologist living with the tribes along the banks of the Sepik River (“flamboyantly serpentine, the Amazon of the South Pacific” – see? Isn’t she brilliant?).
    Of the three main characters, Fen is the only one who doesn’t have a narrative voice. The reader only knows him through the first person narration of Andrew Bankson, and the third person limited narration of his wife, Nell Stone (loosely based on the real-life anthropologist Margaret Mead). We only get to hear his voice through dialogue and observe his actions. He’s the least sympathetic character throughout. Although I did not love him as a person, I loved the creation of him, the complexity of his sometimes-evil nature. And, I understood him, although I could never empathize with him. I’ve met him many times, here in the real world. He reminds me of so many men I’ve known well. He’s Australian, but in many ways, like an American man.
    So, let’s get on with my love letter to Lily King. I plunged under, into the world she created with her words, and did not care to come up for air, ever. I once had a writing teacher who told us to create a list when we got “stuck”. Here’s the best list I’ve ever read (describing Andrew Bankson’s past): “The house I grew up in there, Hemsley House, had been in the possession of Bankson scientists for three generations, its every desktop, drawer, and wardrobe stuffed with scientist’s remnants: spyglasses, test tubes, finger scales, pocket magnifiers, loupes, compasses, and a brass telescope; boxes of glass slides, and ento pins, geodes, fossils, bones, teeth, petrified wood, framed beetles and butterflies, and thousands of loose insect carcasses that turned to powder upon contact.” A positively Dickensian list, but better, less preposterously wordy and more utilitarian. I wanted to walk through Hemsley House, and touch those things. In a way, I felt like I had.
    I could go on and on. I underlined passages and made notations in the margins. I lived inside these pages. There are so many layers, and so many insights and ideas to explore and rethink. I keep going back. After all, anthropology is the study of humans and their lives, their relationships to each other and to their environment, their art, their chronicles. It’s everything. I keep going back to a diagram (a “grid”) that Fen, Andrew and Nell create together, categorizing personalities into the four main directions on a compass. You don’t have to be just North, South, East, or West, though, you can be a Northwest personality, or a Southeast personality. This novel is so complex and so deep. It asks so many beautifully unanswerable questions. Above all, this story leaves the reader with a way to look at, appreciate and observe cultures that are highly civilized, but considered to be primitive and inferior to traditional Western culture. These characters view anthropology through a wide, panoramic lens, a zoom lens, a microscopic lens, and just about any other lens you can think of, including no lens, just immersion. It’s also about how our ideas, like our children, take on a life of their own once they’re launched out into the world. You can take aim, but you have no control after they’re flying free. It’s about how we think and work as individuals and how we work collectively. It’s about everything that’s important in life.
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  • Reviewed in the United States on December 31, 2014
    The publication of this book coincided with my recent interest in Anthropology and hence my reading of it was more pleasurable than it would otherwise be. I do recommend anyone attempting this book to do some reading on basic tenets of anthropology of indigenous tribes. Some preliminary background makes this even more fun to read.
    It would also be useful to learn a little bit about Margaret Mead, an American anthropologist who became famous during the interwar years, before sitting down with this book. Good news is that this is predominantly fiction! It is based on the life of Margaret Mead, appearing here as Nell Stone, but does not trace out her entire life story, probably a wise decision by Lily King. The male characters Fen, the dark-hearted Aussie, and Bankson, the gentlemanly Brit, are based on Margaret Mead’s real life husbands. I like the idea of changing the arc of life in a biographical fiction, as in this case, as it grips the reader not only from “How?” angle, but also from the “What?” angle.
    My sense was that the novel was somewhat truncated after Chapter 28. One could debate whether the novel had enough momentum left at that point to continue on in the civilized world. Perhaps the quick wrap-up of characters’ lives in the remaining chapters was a good way to satisfy some readers’ curiosity and also keep the novel at a commercially attractive length.
    There is a fair amount of authentic-sounding detail about the work habits of anthropologists and their life among indigenous tribes. However, I did not know what to make of the bits that seemed a bit forced. On page 182, we get a description of “scarification,” a ritual to make cuts to the initiate’s body and infect them with salt to get a crocodile like skin features, and Bankson’s reactions to it: “I had seen dozens of sacrifications, but it does not get any easier.” Well, perhaps this bit tells us a bit more about the tribe, reinforces Bankson’s humanistic outlook, and help complete the portrait of an anthropologist. Perhaps these are useful bits, do we absolutely have to have psychoanalytic backgrounds attached to all characters? Does that enrich them, or trivialize their pursuits?
    The narrative point of view alternating between Nell and Bankson propels the story forward at a good clip, while reaching back to characters’ formative years. It is a bit over the top to learn on page 107 that Nell, “as a little girl in bed at night, when other girls were wishing for ponies or roller skates, wished for a band of gypsies to climb up into her window and take her away with them to teach her their language and their customs…. She would tell her family all about these people.” Bankson’s science oriented family putting pressure on the siblings, and the elder brother being killed in the Great War, sound a bit canned. We are also given the background of Bankson’s failed suicide, perhaps following in the footsteps of his other brother, in an exquisite paragraph where his native rescuers either have no concept of suicide or never suspect it “The stones are beautiful, but leave them on land before you swim. And do not swim in clothes. This is also dangerous. And do not swim alone. Being alone you will only come to harm.” Later in the book, when Bankson mentions his failed suicide attempt to Nell, he gets no reaction from her. In a way, Bankson commits scientific suicide by getting swept into Nell’s paradigm, but she is as helpful to him on that front as the natives who rescued Bankson from his real suicide attempt.
    Fen’s background is related to us through his musings over an outwardly subconscious Bankson. We learn about his family’s incestuous entrapment of his younger sister by his band of brothers: ….. These traumas of his past, come to explain his violent streak! Nell thinks that “Fen didn’t want to study natives; he wanted to be a native. His attraction to anthropology was not to puzzle out the history of humanity… It was to live without shoes and eat from his hands and fart in public.” Yet, Fen is openly contemptuous of Nell’s book’s success and also materially ambitious as he arranges a raid to steal the one and only “writing” sample of indigenous tribes. Whether real or imaginary, but Fen takes his place among theoretically open-minded men who cannot bear the success of their spouses.
    The brewing conflict between Bankson and Fen never blows into open, the two men remain collegial to each other.
    What about Nell? Does she jump out of the pages of the novel? She makes a grand entrance as the wounded warrior, fearless, and selfless. Nonetheless, we see the ambition as she rejects the nearby tribes, and hence the safe harbor Bankson offers for her. We see that Nell has the courage to seek the next, never taking comfort in what she has at hand. We hear her assessment: “I love that Amy Lowell poem when I first read it, how her lover was like red wine at the beginning and then became bread. But that has not happened to me. My loves remain wine to me, yet I become too quickly bread to them.” So what are we to make of her sailing away with Fen after Fen had shown his naked ambitions, after she had slept with Bankson? Having learned that she had ditched her earlier lover, Helen, for Fen, and her desire to remain wine to her loves, what do we make of her departure with Fen, leaving Bankson behind? Was she trying to be evasive to avoid being turned into Bankson’s bread? Or was it a re-enactment of the post-conflict separation of the warrior parties, as the winner leaves with the trophy, the vanquished cry out: “Go. Go to your beautiful dance, your beautiful ceremonies. And we will buy our dead.” Could it be that Nell felt like a victor, her methodologies having unearthed a rare, female-dominated society and Fen found his proof of writing, with Bankson as the vanquished, left alone with his ineffective genealogies?
    Nell’s tragic decision was perhaps linked to her earlier comments on the indigenous people: “They know their ancestors have a plan for them. There’s no sense that it was wrong. Tragedy is based on this sense that there’s been a terrible mistake.”
    Perhaps that is reading too much into it. Perhaps my efforts to read more into it is the discomfort of observing the novel’s central character to remain the same, almost inert despite whatever happens around her. In both Fen and Bankson, we observe significant tectonic shifts in character, yet Nell remains almost numb to what is happening around her. Although she is advertised as the change agent, she herself remains steady, almost boringly predictable. Always charging forward, nagging, and haggling to get what she wants, either a piece of information or a baby.
    In the real life, Margaret Mead’s descriptions of a female-dominated society had been mostly discredited: her evidence could not be replicated. In the novel, Nell vanishes with her myths as well.
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Top reviews from other countries

  • Linda Pfeiffer
    5.0 out of 5 stars A case of "who should be studying who?"
    Reviewed in Canada on March 28, 2024
    A couple of newly married Anthropologists, Fen, the groom, and Nellie, the bride, were studying New Guinea tribes in the early 1930's. Soon, Schuyler Fenwick, a Brit, and Nell Stone, an American as they were known professionally, met up with a colleague named Bankson. He also studied different tribes along the same river. Although their training was similar, their goals were very different. This book describes the tribes, the goals of these anthropologists and the day-to-day life amongst these tribes believed to be primitive. It also brings the characters of these scientists into play. The acknowledgments section of this book that the author was initially inspired by another book, Margaret Mead: A Life, and later she read anything she could concerning the anthropologists, Margaret Mead, Reo Fortune, and Gregory Bateson, when they spent a few months together in 1933 on the Sepik River of New Guinea. The book is fiction, and the tribes are fictional as well as most of the villages and places. But, I for one, was drawn into the life in the villages, the tribal people, especially the woman, and of course relationships among the three anthropologists. This was a fascinating read, written by a wonderful author, Lily King.
  • Cliente de Amazon
    5.0 out of 5 stars Loved it
    Reviewed in Mexico on June 7, 2020
    I JUST LOVED THE BOOK.
    HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
  • Charlie in Japan
    5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 23, 2018
    Very good.
  • Y. P. Cruz
    5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best books I have read in the last 5 years
    Reviewed in Spain on October 17, 2016
    I am not a fan of romance--I am usually turned off a book when the major conflict revolves around romance (unless the author is Jane Austen or a Bronte). But this book is different--it is amazing. The story it tells feels more real than the reality it is very loosely based on--and it is clear that the author did a lot of anthropological and historical research, and did it well.
  • Bulongwa
    5.0 out of 5 stars Magnificent!
    Reviewed in Germany on October 4, 2015
    WOW! A pageturner! Now I need to read Margret Mead in original!
    A book sooo sensual - fragrance, heat, sound heartbeat, awe - all there!