Euphoria features the early days of anthropological fieldwork. Lily King reimagines Margaret Mead as Nell Stone, and Mead's second and third husbands as her colleagues and part of an eventual love triangle. King insists that the novel is not historical fiction, although Mead did fieldwork in 1933 New Guinea, the setting for the novel. King's story, however, ends very differently from Mead's actual history. Although the details about New Guinea cultures sound believable, they are not actual tribes.
As Euphoria opens, Nell and her husband, Fen, have left their fieldwork with a fierce tribe when they meet Andrew Bankson, a depressed British anthropologist who recently tried to drown himself. Wanting access to them, Bankson talks Nell and Fen into doing research within reach of him. His belief in anthropology is rekindled by observing Nell's humanistic methods. She finds in Bankson a colleague with whom she can talk as she cannot with her derisive husband, who is jealous of Nell's success in publishing a book. Unsurprisingly, Nell and Bankson's professional affinity grows into sexual attraction.
King doesn't shy from the controversial aspects of researching remote cultures. The title Euphoria reflects the moment when researchers truly understand another culture, although Bankson argues that objectivity is never possible.
Despite much discussion about anthropology methods in the field's beginnings, the focus of the book is the relationship of the three main characters. Euphoria is a story about three different personalities competing, coming together, and separating in a perilous environment.
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