Euphoria A Novel

Andrew Bankson, an English anthropologist, has spent several years alone in the Territory of New Guinea, studying the Kiona river tribe. His research has left him frustrated and isolated, and the memory of his brothers' deaths weighs on him. He is close to suicide when he happens on two fellow anthropologists.

They are Nell Stone, a controversial figure in her field, and her husband Fen, an Australian with a wry, mercurial manner. The pair have just fled the Mumbanyo, a tribe they found bloodthirsty. Nell is in poor health, yet both are eager for a fresh discovery.

Bankson knows of another tribe nearby and leads them to it: the Tam, an artistic people among whom women hold the power. The find draws the three into a shared intellectual and romantic entanglement, and it escapes their control.

The novel is set between the two world wars and is inspired by events in the life of the anthropologist Margaret Mead. It is a literary novel of fieldwork, rivalry and desire, with a close focus on three people working far from home and from any outside check on their conduct.