Euphoria, by Lily King
This book was huge the first year we opened our used bookstore, so we've had copies being traded in and sold steadily since then. The multicolored painted cover was always intriguing, but reveals very little of the novel's subject. Despite being around the book for so long, I had no idea what it was about. Euphoria bowled me over for its subject matter, its sexiness, and its charming, heartbroken narrator.
It is the 1930s, and we are in sweltering, "savage" New Guinea. Nell and Fen, a married couple, are anthropologists, living with various tribes of the area. Like embedded journalists, they try to learn as much as possible about the people they're living with, with varying degrees of success. Though isolated in that way, they are also part of a worldwide network of white scientists racing to make the next big discovery about the "primitive" world. They live in mud huts and travel in canoes, but can leave whenever they like to catch a glimpse of other white faces. Nell struggles with this; Fen does not. Into their complicated lives falls Bankson, our narrator. Bankson is another white anthropologist, and deeply depressed; meeting Nell and Fen is a gasp of fresh air to him, the chance for real friendship and community when he is kept separate from the tribe he's lived with for a couple years. He is immediately taken with the couple, and quickly falls in love with Nell's intelligence and delicacy.
This love triangle, and the highly questionable methods and inspiration that inform the anthropologists, are the parallel bones of this torrid novel. All is not right with Nell and Fen, but we only catch glimpses of it. And Bankson's loneliness is so desperate, even he is blind to the warning signs. Nell shows some awareness of the white man's misplaced judgment of the people she studies, but even she is unable to fully see these people outside the confines of her work. These selective invisibilities careen us towards not one but two climaxes. Neither, surprisingly, are happy. This is a fascinating book, obviously well-researched and beautifully written, that will satisfy both literary and commercial readers alike.
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It is the 1930s, and we are in sweltering, "savage" New Guinea. Nell and Fen, a married couple, are anthropologists, living with various tribes of the area. Like embedded journalists, they try to learn as much as possible about the people they're living with, with varying degrees of success. Though isolated in that way, they are also part of a worldwide network of white scientists racing to make the next big discovery about the "primitive" world. They live in mud huts and travel in canoes, but can leave whenever they like to catch a glimpse of other white faces. Nell struggles with this; Fen does not. Into their complicated lives falls Bankson, our narrator. Bankson is another white anthropologist, and deeply depressed; meeting Nell and Fen is a gasp of fresh air to him, the chance for real friendship and community when he is kept separate from the tribe he's lived with for a couple years. He is immediately taken with the couple, and quickly falls in love with Nell's intelligence and delicacy.
This love triangle, and the highly questionable methods and inspiration that inform the anthropologists, are the parallel bones of this torrid novel. All is not right with Nell and Fen, but we only catch glimpses of it. And Bankson's loneliness is so desperate, even he is blind to the warning signs. Nell shows some awareness of the white man's misplaced judgment of the people she studies, but even she is unable to fully see these people outside the confines of her work. These selective invisibilities careen us towards not one but two climaxes. Neither, surprisingly, are happy. This is a fascinating book, obviously well-researched and beautifully written, that will satisfy both literary and commercial readers alike.
Shop indie!
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