Engrossing Story Enhanced By The Lyrical Prose of Ann Patchett

    Have you ever noticed that audio books differ in giving credit to the actors who voice the story?  Some will note “Read by so-and-so”; others “Narrated by so-and-so”.  In this case Harper Audio has chosen “Performed by Hope Davis.”  Wise choice because this narrator performs,  literally transporting listeners into the heart of the Amazon jungle with a reading that captures us with the first sentence. 

    An accomplished actress with multi stage, screen, and television appearances to her credit, Davis has appeared in some 30 feature films since making her debut in 1990.  She mirrors the trepidation, angst and imperiousness of her characters to perfection.  Whatever the moment she creates it with a nuance - very pleasurable listening.
  
    The author of five novels and a PEN/Faulkner Award winner Ann Patchett really raises the bar with STATE OF WONDER.  A brief but disturbing letter begins her story - Dr. Annick Swenson reports from the Amazon jungle that a colleague, Anders Eckman, has died of a fever and was immediately buried.  Swenson is backed by a Minnesota pharmaceutical company in uncovering a miracle fertility drug.  Anders had told his lab partner, Marina Singh, that Swenson had found a village in which the women “go on bearing children until the end of their lives...”  What pharmaceutical company wouldn’t love to have such a drug?  However, Swenson is secretive about the progress of her research as well as her actual location.

    Thus, Singh, although an unlikely candidate, is sent to the Amazon to find Swenson, the cause of Anders’s death, and the miracle drug.  Well, it’s quite a stretch for Singh from Minneapolis to the Amazon where living conditions are more than primitive, cannibal tribes exist, frightening animls prowl the jungle and mysterious insects fill the air.  As if that weren’t enough Singh is a former student of Swenson’s and intimidated by the overbearing woman.  Singh’s task is a seemingly impossible one, indeed.

    Those who have read Patchett’s previous books are familiar with her lyrical prose which comes to the fore in her descriptions of both the beauty and the horror to be found in the Amazon.  She weaves a story that veers between corporate offices and humane concerns - all the more fascinating for doing so.   Patchett is a writer with enviable authorial skills and consummate intelligence.  STATE OF WONDER is a winner.