State of Wonder
Date
2011
Authors
Patchett, Ann
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Bloomsbury
Abstract
The novel follows pharmacologist Dr. Marina Singh, who receives a letter by another researcher – Dr. Annick Swenson – reporting the death of Dr. Anders Eckman, Annick’s colleague at a drug research site in the Amazon rainforest, and who is working on a mysterious miracle drug. Marina travels to Brazil to find out what happened, discovering that only a couple knows about Annick’s whereabouts. However, Annick eventually appears before Marina, and reveals to be working close to a tribe – the Lakashi –, in which women are able to bear children until the end of their lives by eating the bark of a special tree that grows in their land. Annick is conducting research on the tribe and the bark, so as to develop the mentioned drug, with the intent of preventing the onset of menopause. The bark, however, also acts against malaria. Annick is very protective of her research, as she fears that the Lakashi and their land would be persecuted and destroyed if the knowledge of the properties of the bark came to be known by the wider public. It is ultimately revealed that Annick used herself as a guinea pig for her scientific experiments regarding the drug, and, as an elderly researcher in her 70’s, she was still able to become pregnant; her child, however, is born under strenuous circumstances, and with severe physical deformities.
Description
Keywords
drug , pregnancy , medical experiment , pharmacology
Citation
Patchett, Ann. State of Wonder. Bloomsbury, 2011.