Ann Patchett's new novel, State of Wonder, tells the story of Marina Singh, a pharmacologist whose company sends her to the Amazon jungle to look into the supposed death of her colleague, Anders Eckman. He had been sent to the Amazon to bring back news of Dr. Annick Swenson, who, in the company's employ was developing a miracle fertility drug. Dr. Swenson had become uncommunicative about the progress of her study and her whereabouts. Unfortunately, Enders never returned to tell the story.
Marina is sent by her boss (who is also her lover), Mr. Fox, to get answers. She is quite perturbed by this, as she was once Dr. Swenson's obstetrical medical student and performed a cesearean section that caused a baby to be disfigured. She resigned from that field after and went into pharmacology
What she encounters in Brazil is beyond anything she could imagine. And the crux of Dr. Swenson's research turns out to be quite different from what anyone up north is aware of.
There are so many issues beneath the surface here, most notably the struggle between preserving the habitat of the indigenous people who harbor this miraculous "drug" and sharing that miracle with the rest of the world who could benefit greatly from its healing power.
Don't miss this book. It's really a treasure.
I've been reading other reviews of State of Wonder, which do a good job of summarizing the plot: a woman funded by a pharmaceutical company to do research in the amazon on a drug to extend fertility has gone rogue. The man sent to assess her performance is reported dead in a cryptic letter. The missing man's wife and the boss of Marina, the main character, urge her to go to Brazil to investigate both the research and the death. Many reviewers described Marina's character as flat, but I recognized her as the kind of woman who has been traumatized several times too often and is terrified to stand up to authority for fear of being hurt again. Thus she tends to be passive and lets the researcher bully her into doing things she feels are wrong. The tension in the story has to do with whether she will continue to put herself in jeopardy by obeying orders she knows are wrong or whether she will reach a point where she will assert herself.
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