by Ann Patchett, 2011
Anders Eckman & Marina Singh are doctors who work together in Minnesota doing pharmaceutical research. Anders is sent to the Amazon jungle to try and coax back Dr. Annick Swenson who has been doing research on developing a drug to extend fertility. The Lakashi Tribe in Brazil can have babies into their 70’s. The book begins with a blue paper aerogram coming from Brazil, Annick Swenson, stating Anders is dead and the Lakashi buried him. Marina and Mr. Fox, the president of Vogel, the pharmaceutical company, drive to Anders home to tell his wife and 3 little boys. Wife, Karen Eckman, calls Marina a few days later and asks her to go to the Amazon and try to find out what really happened. She doesn’t believe Anders is dead. Mr. Fox sends Marina to the Amazon. It takes a month before she finally finds Dr. Swenson. (Dr. Swenson refuses to use phone, internet, anything – she has been in the jungle 10 years and Vogel has no news of her progress on the fertility drug).
Marina falls in love with the little boy, Easter, who is deaf but very intelligent and very loving. Marina is a great doctor and Dr. Swenson does not want her to leave once she realizes how well she fits in with the tribe and the research. Marina learns the true research is for a Malaria prevention drug. It is tied to the fertility drug. The women and nursing children never get malaria. Every 5 days the woman go to a grove of trees and chew the bark. Marina starts chewing the bark too. These are beautiful trees in a grass-covered part of the jungle. They have yellowish bark, soft, are very tall, and covered with pink blossoms in the canopy. But light and air and no snakes, spiders, vines, etc. in this part of the jungle.
One evening at sunset, Marina and Easter are sitting by the river watching for a boat to come by to mail Marina’s letters. A boat does come by and it’s Mr. Fox! Come to rescue Marina. He had a devil of a time finding them. Barbara, the young Australian woman who, with her surfer husband Jackie, have an apartment in Manaus and are the gatekeepers for Annik – prevent people from bothering her, agreed to try and find the Lakashi. On the way, they took a wrong tributary and came upon the Hummocca tribe. They tried to kill them – poison arrows – and Barbara says she had a nightmare: she saw her dead father run into the river and call to her to wait. Barbara tells the story to Marina and Dr. Swenson. Dr. Swenson says Barbara’s father would have been a tall, pale white man and maybe she really saw Anders. Dr. Swenson never really saw Anders dead – she said he just disappeared one night in a fever and they all assumed he was dead. Marina and Easter take the boat to try and negotiate his release from the Hummocca. Marina brings oranges, peanut butter and a basket full of Rapps, the hallucinogenic mushrooms that grow at the base of the beautiful trees. They take the pontoon boat and Easter drives it 2 hours to the tribe of the Hummocca. When they get there, they are bombarded with arrows – Marina covers Easter. Shouts out in Lakashi – we have gifts – we have gifts. She sees Anders – he sees her. She tosses him an orange. He passes it around the Hummocca. And then the Hummocca see Easter.
“The man with the yellow forehead stood there waist deep in the water, his chest against the pontoon, and the look on his face was the same look that had been on her face a moment before when she first saw Anders, a cross of joy and disbelief, a look that was willing to accept that which was not possible. He turned and called to a woman on the shore who put the child she was holding on the ground and walked out into the water. Once she had seen Easter from a distance, she tried to move faster and the water held her back. She called to him, stretching out her arms, the trembling in her body sending out a ring of small waves into the water. And then she was there, pulling herself onto the boat and Easter shrank back behind Marina, his hands around her waist as tight as a snake.”
Anders is set free in return for Easter, the beloved little deaf boy – returned to his tribe, the Hummocca. They had brought him to Annik Swenson as an infant because he was deathly ill. Annik cured him but it took weeks – when they came back for him just a few days later, she told them he had died. She raised him as her own.
Anders and Marina return to Minnesota – Anders to his wife and 3 little boys. Their reunion is everything you’d imagine – A beloved father and husband retiring from the dead.
GREAT BOOK! LOVED IT!!!
Wonderful characters, wonderful story, fantastic setting – Minnesota – the most beautiful place on earth vs. the steamy jungle.