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Harper
June 2011
On Sale: June 7, 2011
368 pages
ISBN: 0062049801
EAN: 9780062049803
Hardcover
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Fiction Family Life
Ann Patchett has dazzled readers with her award-winning
books, including The Magician's Assistant and the New York
Times bestselling Bel Canto. Now she raises the bar with
State of Wonder, a provocative and ambitious novel set deep
in the Amazon jungle. Dr. Marina Singh, a research scientist with a Minnesota
pharmaceutical company, is sent to Brazil to track down her
former mentor, Dr. Annick Swenson, who seems to have all but
disappeared in the Amazon while working on what is destined
to be an extremely valuable new drug, the development of
which has already cost the company a fortune. Nothing about
Marina's assignment is easy: not only does no one know where
Dr. Swenson is, but the last person who was sent to find
her, Marina's research partner Anders Eckman, died before he
could complete his mission. Plagued by trepidation, Marina
embarks on an odyssey into the insect-infested jungle in
hopes of finding her former mentor as well as answers to
several troubling questions about her friend's death, the
state of her company's future, and her own past. Once found, Dr. Swenson, now in her seventies, is as
ruthless and uncompromising as she ever was back in the days
of Grand Rounds at Johns Hopkins. With a combination of
science and subterfuge, she dominates her research team and
the natives she is studying with the force of an imperial
ruler. But while she is as threatening as anything the
jungle has to offer, the greatest sacrifices to be made are
the ones Dr. Swenson asks of herself, and will ultimately
ask of Marina, who finds she may still be unable to live up
to her teacher's expectations. In a narrative replete with poison arrows, devouring snakes,
and a neighboring tribe of cannibals, State of Wonder is a
world unto itself, where unlikely beauty stands beside
unimaginable loss. It is a tale that leads the reader into
the very heart of darkness, and then shows us what lies on
the other side.
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