EUPHORIA by Lily King (fic)

This is a lightly veiled fictionalized account of a period in the life of the social anthropologist, Margaret Mead who achieved early fame for her "Coming of Age in Samoa." Mead wrote the book in 1928 and was wildly acclaimed until the latter 20th century when her popularity flamed out.  Lily King, a superb writer, has chosen to base her novel on a 1933 study trip Mead took with her husband Riu Fortune up the Sepik River in New Guinia.  "Euphoria" was chosen one of the Times 10 best books of 2014 and also won the Kirkus Prize that year.

King's stand in for Mead is Nell Stone, who like Mead, is coming off great fame for a book called, "The Children of Kirakira."  Her husband Fen, a Hemingway type of macho guy, is jealous of her popularity and hungry for a find of his own.  They meet up with an old acquaintance, Andrew Bankson, at a Christmas party after a failed field study with another tribe the two were living among. Bankson is the narrator of the story, who falls in love with Nell.  He is conducting his own study of the Kirakira tribe. Bankson is an interesting character himself, having lost two brothers, one in WWI and the other, unlucky in love, committed a well-publicized suicide in Piccadilly Square in London.

Bankson finds Nell and Fen a tribe seven hours  up the river from his station where they take up residence with the Tam people.  It proves a convenient spot for the three anthropologists to occasionally meet and exchange observations.  Before long, Bankson who lived such an isolated life, falls for Nell, and the love triangle steams up just as the King's descriptions of the steamy hot jungle feel realistically dangerous.

Bankson's memories of this trip are combined with musings in a diary of Nell's he possesses.  Things seem to be going well for the three as they combine their findings.  They believe they are making a breakthrough in the understanding of all humans by the study of the Sepik River tribes, thus the euphoria of the title, (or perhaps, equally, the euphoria, of love and sex).  Before long, however, things go horribly wrong as Fen's need for recognition leads him to a disaster that affects them all.

While King pulls from an incident in Mead's life, the book ends very differently than Mead's own life.  There is a lovely last paragraph in the novel, that I won't quote as it might be a spoiler. King has a way of writing that creates a sense of being in the moment for the reader and its moody spell keeps one in thrall even after the last page is read.  I greatly enjoyed this book and highly recommend it to all readers; it would make for a lively book group discussion.