“It’s that moment about two months in, when you think you’ve finally got a handle on the place. Everything clicks and it all feels within your grasp…at that moment the place feels entirely yours. It’s the briefest, purest euphoria.” From the critically-acclaimed author of Father of the Rain comes a breathtaking novel about three gifted and groundbreaking anthropologists of the ‘30s bound together … bound together by an all-consuming passion.
For years, English anthropologist Andrew Bankson has been alone in the field studying the Kiona tribe of Papua New Guinea. Haunted by the memory of his brother’s public suicide, and increasingly infuriated with and isolated by his research, Bankson is on the verge of killing himself when a chance meeting with colleagues, the controversial and consummate Nell Stone and her wry Australian husband Fen, pulls him back from the brink. Nell and Fen have just finished their studies of the bloodthirsty Mumbanyo and, in spite of Nell’s ill health, the couple is ravenous for another new discovery.
Together with Bankson they set out to uncover the Tam, a local tribe with an almost mythic existence. As the trio settle with the tribe in their paradisiacal surroundings, inspiration flows and mutual affections swell. In the midst of this new, unchartered territory, Nell, Bankson, and Fen must learn not only to adapt to their invigorating present, but to also confront their complicated and haunted pasts. Set between two World Wars, and based on the adventures of revolutionary anthropologist Margaret Mead, Euphoria is a luminous and remarkable story of the power of possibility, imagination, and memory, from accomplished author Lily King.
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Just started Euphoria–so good! The first few pages didn’t draw me in, but as soon as the main character (who’s based on Margaret Mead) starting breaking down and summarizing the behavioral patterns of everyone around her, I got way into it. If you enjoy anthropology and ethnographies, check this one out!!
I wish more people were reading Lily King. Her book Euphoria is one of my favorite books of all time. Based on the story of Margaret Mead, it’s about three anthropologists in Papua New Guinea in the 1930s. I was blown away by the writing in this book, but also by the rich character development and nuanced story of adventure, relationships, …
A gorgeous, well-written read.
King clearly did a good bit of research for Euphoria, and she skillfully transports the reader to 1930s New Guinea. The three anthropologist protagonists have delectable chemistry that kept me flipping pages, and when I wasn’t gasping at the pure romance of the lines about bread and wine and love, I was busy …
Based on the life of anthropologist, Margaret Mead and those working with her, King has adeptly combined an exquiste writing skill with meticulous research, both into the life and adventures of the anthropoogists and into the cultures which they studied. A fabulous read even if you have no interest in anthropology.
Gorgeous, original, transporting. Inspired by Margaret Mead but that’s just the jumping-off point for a beautifully written, intricately woven tale of unhappy people in circumstances well beyond their control. If you can get it on audio, do: Xe Sands is spectacular here.
Years ago I read Margaret Mead’s Blackberry Winter and became interested in cultural anthropology. So I was already intrigued by the subject and premise of Lily King’s Euphoria. I’ve never read anything quite like it. Set in the tribal villages of New Guinea, the story follows a lone man and a man-and-wife team through astonishing events among …
This book is loosely based on the adventures of anthropologist, Margaret Mead. It is inspiring and perspective-changing.
Think Hemingway’s The Green Hills of Africa, or Isak Dinesen’s Out of Africa, and you begin to feel the spell of Lily King’s historical novel Euphoria. Euphoria is loosely based on the life of Margaret Mead, a cultural anthropologist who enlightened us to the central theme that even with the differences among humans, we are unified by our common …
This might be one of my all-time favorite books. I loved everything about it: the interesting era, the wild landscape, the project that brings the three characters together, and I loved the slow but torturous way the story ends, even the tragic surprise. Such masterful storytelling! The details in this story deserve to be savored like a fine wine …
As someone with a cultural anthropology
degree, I was pleased to see many of the tricky field’s arguments, errors, breakthroughs & successes rolled into a novel—along with representations of the key figures who shaped this newly developing “science.” The fieldwork sections are perfect. However, the rather quick, off the page deaths of two key …