Ami asked Lily King:

One of my favorite things about Euphoria was the joy Nell takes in her scientific discoveries. Is this based on Margaret Mead's descriptions of her work?

Lily King Margaret Mead was passionate about her work. In her biography by Jane Howard, her first husband says that after their wedding, when they got the hotel room, she told him she had a head-splitting amount of work to do and shut the bedroom door. Her work infused every part of her life. And her life infused her work. She said in a New Yorker profile: "The whole world is my field. It's all anthropology." And she really lived that way. I was interested in someone like that. I am not like that. I compartmentalize more, I think. When I'm with my kids I'm with my kids. I'm not thinking about my novel all that much. So I was interested in someone who just lived it and breathed it (and of course in the field that's what you're doing) and feeling so thrilled by it all. The irony is that I was not feeling any of that thrill while I was writing this book! It was hard and I was scared of failure most of the time.

flag