---
title: "How Character Drives Story – Book Review of Ann Patchett’s State of Wonder"
date: 2012-05-14
description: "$( document ).ready(function() { // Handler for .ready() called. $("
canonical_url: https://idratherbewriting.com/2012/05/14/how-character-drives-story-book-review-state-of-wonder-by-ann-patchett/
---
# How Character Drives Story – Book Review of Ann Patchett’s State of Wonder
Ann Patchett's *[State of Wonder](http://www.qksrv.net/click-5620807-10273919?url=http://www.audible.com/pd/ref=sr_1_1?asin=B0052OUFO0&qid=1336491187&sr=1-1&source_code=COMA0213WS031709)*, published in 2011, is a story about a pharmaceutical researcher's attempt to make sense of her lost colleague, presumably dead in the Amazon, while wrestling with a domineering academic professor who refuses to communicate updates about her research.

The book begins at a slow pace but, as Janet Maslin notes in her [New York Times review](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/02/books/state-of-wonder-by-ann-patchett-book-review.html), the story catches fire when the narrator, Marina Singh, meets up with Annicka Swenson, the mythic professor of Marina's past.

Dr. Swenson, a medical professor specializing in reproductive endocrinology, has gone to the Amazon to live with the Lakashi -- a tribe of indigenous people where the women can continue bearing children throughout their lives (this is not necessarily an advantage). Dr. Swenson's goal is to find out the secret of their fertility and develop a drug for Vogel, the pharmaceutical company sponsoring her research.

The Vogel CEO, Dr. Fox, is eager to receive an update about Swenson's research, but she is out of touch in the Amazon, and it has been 26 months since she last communicated with Vogel. Meanwhile, Vogel continues to spend a ton of money supporting the effort.

Dr. Fox sent one employee, Anders Eckman, to seek out Dr. Swenson, but Anders, a jungle novice, contracted a fever in the Amazon and presumably died. Dr. Fox decides to send another employee, Marina, a former student of the mythic Dr. Swenson, and also his mistress, to locate Dr. Swenson and get an update about the research.