"State of Wonder," by Ann Patchett

I just finished listening on CD as the actress Hope Davis read “State of Wonder” (Harper, 2011; HarperAudio, 2011), the new novel by Ann Patchett, the author of the wonderful earlier novel “Bel Canto.” This book is eventful, suspenseful, psychologically fascinating, and sometimes painful. Dr. Marina Singh, who works for a big pharmaceutical company, is sent from Minnesota to the Amazon to find out what happened to her colleague Anders Eckman. He, in turn, had been sent there earlier to find out what was happening with the top-secret research Dr. Annick Swenson was doing there on behalf of the company. To complicate matters, Dr. Swenson had been Marina’s professor in medical school many years before, and was witness to a traumatic episode during Marina’s residency that made Marina change careers from medicine to pharmaceutical research. In any case, the trip to the research site is filled with obstacles, and once she reaches it, she learns amazing facts, endures difficulties, yet finds a certain satisfaction in her time there. As in her past, she has mixed feelings about Dr. Swenson, yet she gains a new relationship with her. She gets to know the Lakashi people among whom Dr. Swenson and a small, secretive group of scientists are doing the research. She becomes attached to a deaf child, Easter (what a symbolic name!), who is an integral part of the story, including in the climactic surprise ending. There are important ethical questions to be wrestled with, about the drugs Dr. Swenson has discovered, about whose life is worth how much, and about what tradeoffs may need to be made. The descriptions of the Amazon and the jungle are vivid, and somehow both oppressive and liberating. Both Marina and Dr. Swenson are well-drawn, compelling and complicated characters, and Marina’s journey toward Dr. Swenson creates “Heart of Darkness”-like reverberations. Although this is not the type of novel I am normally drawn to (with its overwhelming and dangerous jungle setting), I am glad I read (listened to) it. It is perhaps not quite as magically entrancing as “Bel Canto” was, but it comes close.