Fiction

April 25, 2011 Ann Patchett’s forthcoming novel, State of Wonder, features cannibals and snakes and a Heart of Darkness-like odyssey into an unknown world that leads inexorably to a confrontation with the protagonist’s past. It is thus unlike any other novel Patchett has ever written, and yet it has all the hallmarks of a Patchett novel, nonetheless: written in lucid, almost transparent prose, the new novel offers a page-turning tale about a set of characters who are intensely original and particular, but who are at the same time so recognizable as to be nearly universal. State of Wonder will be released on June 7, and Patchett will read from it on June 28 at the Nashville Public Library as part of the Salon@615 series. Today, Patchett talks candidly about the book and offers an exclusive excerpt for Chapter 16 readers.

April 25, 2011 In her forthcoming novel, State of Wonder, which hits shelves June 7, Nashville author Ann Patchett tells the story of Marina Singh, a researcher for a pharmaceutical company, who had trained to be an obstetrician, until a tragic mistake in the delivery room drove her from medicine. For more than a decade, she has tried to forget the botched C-section and the supervisor, Annick Swenson, who failed to come to her aid when the patient developed complications. But when the pharmaceutical company she works for sends Marina deep into the Amazon to find the elusive Dr. Swenson, who has spent the intervening years working in the jungle to develop a miracle fertility drug, Marina must confront both her long-feared professor and her understanding of her own past. In the following excerpt, Marina is on board a boat piloted by Easter, a deaf native child whom Annick Swenson has raised as a son. They are approaching the riverside village of the Lakashi, where the women of the tribe continue to bear children into old age.