State of Wonder - Large Print by Ann Patchett (Paperback)

About the Book

"Expect miracles when you read Ann Patchett's fiction."--New York Times Book Review

Award-winning, New York Times bestselling author Ann Patchett returns with a provocative and assured novel of morality and miracles, science and sacrifice set in the Amazon rainforest. Infusing the narrative with the same ingenuity and emotional urgency that pervaded her acclaimed previous novels Bel Canto, Taft, Run, The Magician's Assistant, and The Patron Saint of Liars, Patchett delivers an enthrallingly innovative tale of aspiration, exploration, and attachment in State of Wonder--a gripping adventure story and a profound look at the difficult choices we make in the name of discovery and love.

Book Synopsis

"Expect miracles when you read Ann Patchett's fiction."-- New York Times Book Review

Award-winning, New York Times bestselling author Ann Patchett returns with a provocative and assured novel of morality and miracles, science and sacrifice set in the Amazon rainforest. Infusing the narrative with the same ingenuity and emotional urgency that pervaded her acclaimed previous novels Bel Canto, Taft, Run, The Magician's Assistant, and The Patron Saint of Liars, Patchett delivers an enthrallingly innovative tale of aspiration, exploration, and attachment in State of Wonder--a gripping adventure story and a profound look at the difficult choices we make in the name of discovery and love.

From the Back Cover

Dr. Marina Singh, a research scientist with a Minnesota pharmaceutical company, is sent to the Amazon to find her former mentor, Dr. Annick Swenson, who seems to have disappeared while working on a new drug. No one knows where Dr. Swenson is, and the last person sent to find her died before completing his mission. Plagued by trepidation, Marina embarks on an odyssey in hopes of finding answers.

Now in her seventies, the uncompromising Dr. Swenson dominates her research team and the natives with the force of an imperial ruler. But while she is as threatening as anything the jungle has to offer, the greatest sacrifices are those Dr. Swenson asks of herself, and will ultimately ask of Marina, who finds she is still unable to live up to her teacher's expectations.

Replete with poison arrows, devouring snakes, and cannibals, State of Wonder is a tale that leads you into the very heart of darkness, and then shows what lies on the other side.

Review Quotes

"Her best novel....These pages have a pulsing, seductive rhythm... The wonder of State of Wonder is that Patchett poses essential philosophical and bioethical arguments in a story that still speeds along like a literary thriller, reaching a tremendous, deeply emotional crescendo. Bella scrittura." - Time magazine

"Packs a textbook's worth of ethical conundrums into a smart and tidily delivered story. . . . Ms. Patchett presents an alluring interplay between civilization and wilderness, between aid and exploitation." - Wall Street Journal

"In her most incisive work yet, Patchett achieves alchemy, creating complex, compelling characters, packing a Ph.D.'s worth of scientific knowledge into a nail-biting narrative, setting stark human dilemmas against a lush, exotic backdrop." - People

"Outlandishly entertaining...[with] a brilliantly constructed plot." - Elle

"[A] gripping new novel. . . . Patchett has an uncanny knack for writing stories about complex characters to whom things actually happen. True to form, she manages to braid questions of medical and social ethics alongside encounters with cannibals, anacondas, even an opera house, making this a bubbling stew of a novel." - Marie Claire

"Extraordinary. . . . Is there nothing the prodigiously talented Ann Patchett can't do? . . . Patchett's last knockout pages proceed full-speed ahead, with more twists and turns and trachery than the Amazon River. Nothing is as it seems, and the ending is as shocking as it's satisfying." - Boston Globe

"Patchett makes the jungle jump off the page...This is Patchett's best effort since The Patron Saint of Liars and, yes, that includes Bel Canto" - Shelf Awareness

"The Amazon setting is something Patchett does rather marvelously.... The book is serious, but also so pleasurable that you hope it won't end." - NPR

"Emotionally lucid. . . . Patchett is at her lyrical best when she catalogues the jungle." - The New Yorker

"An engaging, consummately told tale." - New York Times

"This is surely the smartest, most exciting novel of the summer." - Washington Post

"A thrilling new novel. . . . The world imagined in this novel is unusually vivid. . . . Reading State of Wonder is a sensory experience, and even after it's over you'll keep hearing the sounds of insects, and your own head will still be hot."

"A spellbinder from bestselling author Patchett. . . . Thrilling, disturbing and moving in equal measures--even better than Patchett's breakthrough Bel Canto." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"A superbly rendered novel. . . . Patchett's portrayal is as wonderful as it is frightening and foreign. Patchett exhibits an extraordinary ability to bring the horrors and the wonders of the Amazon jungle to life, and her singular characters are wonderfully drawn. . . . Powerful and captivating." - Library Journal (starred review)

"A thrilling new novel. . . . The world imagined in this novel is unusually vivid. . . . Reading State of Wonder is a sensory experience, and even after it's over you'll keep hearing the sounds of insects, and your own head will still be hot." - MORE Magazine

"The large canvas of sweeping moral issues, both personal and global, comes to life through careful attention to details, however seemingly mundane--from ill-fitting shoes and mosquito bites to a woman tenderly braiding another woman's hair." - O, the Oprah Magazine