Euphoria by Lily King

We start with an ominous shape, a pale brown thing being thrown at a canoe. The shape may be a baby, discarded by the murderous Mumbanyo tribe, but our protagonist can’t be sure – her glasses have broken. Based on the life of anthropologist Margaret Mead, who caused shockwaves in 1928 with the publication of her book about the sexual habits of teens – Coming of Age in Samoa, King has taken some of the known facts of Mead's life, weaving them into an engaging fictionalisation of her own making.

We meet Mead (or in King’s case Nell) on New Year’s Eve with her husband Fen, leaving the Mumbanyo after a long period of research. Nell is happy to be leaving, battle wounded and depleted, but Fen is more reticent.  This is the night they will meet Andrew Bankson – based on English anthropologist Gregory Bateson – who, in reality, would go on to be Mead’s third husband. Bankson becomes the third member of their marriage and their lives interlock over the course of the book. King has created an impressively oppressive atmosphere for the three to play out their love affair, personal traumas and professional concerns about theories of world order and cultural documentation at a pivotal moment of anthropological history.