Play Book Tag discussion

Lily King provides here a love triangle among young anthropoligists who found themselves studying in the same area in New Guinea for a few months in 1932. Nell already has reached academic success, plus popular fame and fortune, with the publication of a book based on her studies of a Solomon Islands tribe. Fen, her husband, has also published a report of his year with a tribe of sorcerers that brought him some academic acknowledgments but nothing compared to Nell's. There marriage is not smooth or completely happy , and the strain shows in their working partnership, with Fen[s jealousy and feelings of powerlessness tied to his lack of success compared to Nell's. The third member of this triangle, and the primary narrator, Bankson has achieved some respect due to his extended time spent with a tribe in New Guinea but struggles with depression, loneliness, and a sense of inadequacy, even failure, as an anthropologiest. For him, meeting Nell and Fen is life- and career- saving, especially Nell. All of course does not go smoothly for them.

King was inspired to write this by Margaret Mead and her time in New Guinea with two other noted anthropolgists, one her then husband and the other the man who became her third husband. It also clearly led to a great deal of research into cultural anthropology and its methodologies. I loved how King wove that into this story by having each main character represent a different methodology and theory. It added great depth and tension to the relationships.

I did enjoy the story here, but something just doesn't sit well for me, primarily with the first 25% or so of the book. That may have been my own fault though. Despoite knowing what this was about, and knowing it was fiction, I somehow had it in mind this was a retelling of Margaret Mead's life and relationships at that time, not a work of historical fiction. It took me too long to sort my head out when reading it, and I even went back at one point and re-read the first couple of chapters because I sure had not taken them in. My other issue is with the ending -- as being too quick and pat, though in truth I think I expected it. I basically give this 3.5 but rounded up to 4 as I really liked that it was primarily told by Bankson in the first person, and that the only other occasional narrator is Nell via a few diary entries here and there.