de Lily King
New York Times Bestseller: An “enthralling,” prize-winning novel of a love triangle among three young archaeologists in 1930s New Guinea (Vogue).
Winner of the Kirkus Prize
Winner of the New England Book Award for Fiction
Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award
Named a Best Book of the Year by: The 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, Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, Oprah.com, Salon
From the author of Writers & Lovers and Five Tuesdays in Winter, Euphoria follows three young, gifted anthropologists 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” (The Boston Globe).
“A thrilling read.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Atmospheric and sensual.” —NPR
“A taut, witty, fiercely intelligent tale of competing egos and desires in a landscape of exotic menace. . . . Exquisite.” —The New York Times Book Review
New York Times Bestseller: An “enthralling,” prize-winning novel of a love triangle among three young archaeologists in 1930s New Guinea (Vogue).
Winner of the Kirkus Prize
Winner of the New England Book Award for Fiction
Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award
Named a Best Book of the Year by: The 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, Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, Oprah.com, Salon
From the author of Writers & Lovers and Five Tuesdays in Winter, Euphoria follows three young, gifted anthropologists 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” (The Boston Globe).
“A thrilling read.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Atmospheric and sensual.” —NPR
“A taut, witty, fiercely intelligent tale of competing egos and desires in a landscape of exotic menace. . . . Exquisite.” —The New York Times Book Review
Critiques-
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Starred review from April 14, 2014
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. Set in the 1930s in Papua New Guinea, this impeccably researched story illuminates the state of the world as clearly as the passion of its characters. Many years into his study of the isolated Kiona tribe, Andrew Bankson (the stand-in for Bateson here) is recovering from a recent failed suicide attempt when he meets with renowned anthropologist Nell Stone (Mead) and her fiery husband Fen (Fortune) at a party. His vigor for life renewed after meeting them, Andrew introduces the couple to the tribe they’ll be studying, who live a few hours away, down the Sepik River. Before long, Andrew becomes obsessed—not just with his work but with Nell, and the relationship tangle sets off a fateful series of events. While the love triangle sections do turn pages (Innuendo! Jealousy! Betrayal!), 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.” Agent: Julie Barer, Barer Literary. -
Starred review from April 15, 2014
King (Father of the Rain, 2010, etc.) changes the names (and the outcome) in this atmospheric romantic fiction set in New Guinea and clearly based on anthropologist Margaret Mead's relationship with her second and third husbands, R.F. Fortune and Gregory Bateson--neither a slouch in his own right. In the early 1930s, Nell and Fen are married anthropologists in New Guinea. American Nell has already published a controversial best-seller about Samoan child-rearing while Australian Fen has published only a monograph on Dobu island sorcery. Their marriage is in trouble: She holds Fen responsible for her recent miscarriage; he resents her fame and financial success. Shortly after leaving the Mumbanyo tribe they have been studying (and which Nell has grown to abhor), they run into British anthropologist Bankson, who is researching another tribal village, the Nengai, along the Sepik River. Deeply depressed--he has recently attempted suicide--Bankson is haunted by the deaths of his older brothers and his scientist father's disappointment in him for practicing what is considered a soft science. Also deeply lonely, Bankson offers to find Nell and Fen an interesting tribe to study to keep them nearby. Soon the couple is happily ensconced with the Tam, whose women surprise Nell with their assertiveness. While the attraction, both physical and intellectual, between Bankson and Nell is obvious, Fen also offers Bankson tender care, which threatens to go beyond friendship, when Bankson falls ill. At first, the three-way connection is uniting and stimulating. But as Nell's and Bankson's feelings for each other develop, sexual tensions grow. So do the differences between Fen's and Nell's views on the anthropologist's role. While Bankson increasingly shares Nell's empathetic approach, Fen plots to retrieve an artifact from the Mumbanyo to cement his career. King does not shy from showing the uncomfortable relationship among all three anthropologists and those they study. Particularly upsetting is the portrait of a Tam who returns "civilized" after working in a copper mine. A small gem, disturbing and haunting.COPYRIGHT(2014) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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April 15, 2014
Just after a failed suicide attempt, Andrew Bankson, English anthropologist studying the Kiona tribe in the territory of New Guinea, meets a pair of fellow anthropologists fleeing from a cannibalistic tribe down river. Nell Stone is controversial and well respected. Her rough Australian husband, Fen, is envious of her fame and determined to outshine her. Bankson helps them find a new tribe to study, the artistic, female-dominated Tam. Nell's quiet assurance and love of the work, and Fen's easy familiarity, pull Bankson back from the brink. But it is the growing fire between him and Nell that they cannot do anything about. Layered on top of that is Nell's grasp of the nuances of the Tam, which makes it clear that she will once again surpass Fen. 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.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.) -
January 1, 2014
In the Territory of New Guinea, between the world wars, English anthropologist Andrew Banson is rescued from despair by notorious colleague Nell Stone and her Australian husband. Banson's discovery of a female-centered tribe sets off personal and professional firestorms among the three. From a Barnes and Noble Discover Award winner who's been building an impressive career.
Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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Starred review from May 15, 2014
Inspired by an event in the life of Margaret Mead, this novel tells the story of three young anthropologists in 1930s New Guinea. Professional superstar Nell Stone and her Australian husband, Fen, flee one tribe, and, with the help of English anthropologist Andrew Bankson, settle with the Tam, an unusual, female-dominated tribe. A love triangle soon develops among the three. The attraction Bankson feels for Nell saves him from loneliness and suicide, but it heightens tensions between Nell and Fen, ultimately exploding in violence. 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. They disagree on the extent to which it is possible and even necessary to intrude on a culture in order to understand it. These differences, along with professional jealousy and sexual tension, propel the story toward its inevitable conclusion. VERDICT 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. [See Prepub Alert, 1/6/14.]--Evelyn Beck, Piedmont Technical Coll., Greenwood, SC
Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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May 15, 2014
Inspired by an event in the life of Margaret Mead, this novel tells the story of three young anthropologists in 1930s New Guinea. Professional superstar Nell Stone and her Australian husband, Fen, flee one tribe, and, with the help of English anthropologist Andrew Bankson, settle with the Tam, an unusual, female-dominated tribe. A love triangle soon develops among the three. The attraction Bankson feels for Nell saves him from loneliness and suicide, but it heightens tensions between Nell and Fen, ultimately exploding in violence. 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. They disagree on the extent to which it is possible and even necessary to intrude on a culture in order to understand it. These differences, along with professional jealousy and sexual tension, propel the story toward its inevitable conclusion. VERDICT 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. [See Prepub Alert, 1/6/14.]--Evelyn Beck, Piedmont Technical Coll., Greenwood, SC
Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
- Emily Eakin, New York Times Book Review (cover review) “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."
- Ron Charles, Washington Post "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."
- Marion Winik, Newsday "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."
- Reader's Digest summer reading list) “Euphoria is at once romantic, exotic, informative, and entertaining."
- USA Today's Summer's Hottest Titles "It's smart and steamy and like the best historical fiction, it made me want to read about Mead."
- Kathryn Schulz,New York, Best Books of the Year "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."
- Vogue Top 10 Books of 2014 “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 "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."
- San Francisco Chronicle, Top 10 Books of 2014 “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."
- Joan Frank,San Francisco Chronicle "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...
