---
product_id: 124545983
title: "Euphoria"
price: "€ 4.97"
currency: EUR
in_stock: false
reviews_count: 13
url: https://www.desertcart.at/products/124545983-euphoria
store_origin: AT
region: Austria
---

# Euphoria

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## Description

New York Times Bestseller: An "enthralling," prize-winning novel of a love triangle among three young archaeologists in 1930s New Guinea ( Vogue ). Winner of the Kirkus Prize Winner of the New England Book Award for Fiction Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award Named a Best Book of the Year by: The New York Times Book Review , Time , NPR, Washington Post , Entertainment Weekly , Newsday , Vogue , New York Magazine , Seattle Times , San Francisco Chronicle , Wall Street Journal , Boston Globe , Kirkus Reviews , Publishers Weekly , Oprah.com, Salon From the author of Writers & Lovers and Five Tuesdays in Winter , Euphoria follows three young, gifted anthropologists caught in a passionate love triangle that threatens their bonds, their careers, and, ultimately, their lives. Inspired by events in the life of revolutionary anthropologist Margaret Mead, Euphoria is "dazzling . . . suspenseful . . . brilliant . . . an exhilarating novel" ( The Boston Globe ). "A thrilling read." — Publishers Weekly (starred review) "Atmospheric and sensual." —NPR "A taut, witty, fiercely intelligent tale of competing egos and desires in a landscape of exotic menace. . . . Exquisite." — The New York Times Book Review

Review: Absolutely wonderful! - I am a little bit obsessed with this book. It's funny because even at the 75% point I wasn't really sure of the point of the book. Don't get me wrong - the writing is fantastic, the story was interesting, but I was unsure of the point of the book. And then, by the end, I loved everything about it. King is a storyteller. She's a fantastic writer. I loved the impetus for her writing this book - I love how she framed it, and I love all of the characters. I finished the book and immediately ordered two biographies of Margaret Meade and one of her books. Looking back, I really think the feeling I got upon finishing the book was the euphoric feeling described in the book (the one anthropologists feel while studying individuals). I loved all the anthropology talk (and the debating about the best ways to write ethnographies (and study people). I already want to go back and read it again!
Review: Great mix of anthropology, suspense, and male guileless - The publication of this book coincided with my recent interest in Anthropology and hence my reading of it was more pleasurable than it would otherwise be. I do recommend anyone attempting this book to do some reading on basic tenets of anthropology of indigenous tribes. Some preliminary background makes this even more fun to read. It would also be useful to learn a little bit about Margaret Mead, an American anthropologist who became famous during the interwar years, before sitting down with this book. Good news is that this is predominantly fiction! It is based on the life of Margaret Mead, appearing here as Nell Stone, but does not trace out her entire life story, probably a wise decision by Lily King. The male characters Fen, the dark-hearted Aussie, and Bankson, the gentlemanly Brit, are based on Margaret Mead’s real life husbands. I like the idea of changing the arc of life in a biographical fiction, as in this case, as it grips the reader not only from “How?” angle, but also from the “What?” angle. My sense was that the novel was somewhat truncated after Chapter 28. One could debate whether the novel had enough momentum left at that point to continue on in the civilized world. Perhaps the quick wrap-up of characters’ lives in the remaining chapters was a good way to satisfy some readers’ curiosity and also keep the novel at a commercially attractive length. There is a fair amount of authentic-sounding detail about the work habits of anthropologists and their life among indigenous tribes. However, I did not know what to make of the bits that seemed a bit forced. On page 182, we get a description of “scarification,” a ritual to make cuts to the initiate’s body and infect them with salt to get a crocodile like skin features, and Bankson’s reactions to it: “I had seen dozens of sacrifications, but it does not get any easier.” Well, perhaps this bit tells us a bit more about the tribe, reinforces Bankson’s humanistic outlook, and help complete the portrait of an anthropologist. Perhaps these are useful bits, do we absolutely have to have psychoanalytic backgrounds attached to all characters? Does that enrich them, or trivialize their pursuits? The narrative point of view alternating between Nell and Bankson propels the story forward at a good clip, while reaching back to characters’ formative years. It is a bit over the top to learn on page 107 that Nell, “as a little girl in bed at night, when other girls were wishing for ponies or roller skates, wished for a band of gypsies to climb up into her window and take her away with them to teach her their language and their customs…. She would tell her family all about these people.” Bankson’s science oriented family putting pressure on the siblings, and the elder brother being killed in the Great War, sound a bit canned. We are also given the background of Bankson’s failed suicide, perhaps following in the footsteps of his other brother, in an exquisite paragraph where his native rescuers either have no concept of suicide or never suspect it “The stones are beautiful, but leave them on land before you swim. And do not swim in clothes. This is also dangerous. And do not swim alone. Being alone you will only come to harm.” Later in the book, when Bankson mentions his failed suicide attempt to Nell, he gets no reaction from her. In a way, Bankson commits scientific suicide by getting swept into Nell’s paradigm, but she is as helpful to him on that front as the natives who rescued Bankson from his real suicide attempt. Fen’s background is related to us through his musings over an outwardly subconscious Bankson. We learn about his family’s incestuous entrapment of his younger sister by his band of brothers: ….. These traumas of his past, come to explain his violent streak! Nell thinks that “Fen didn’t want to study natives; he wanted to be a native. His attraction to anthropology was not to puzzle out the history of humanity… It was to live without shoes and eat from his hands and fart in public.” Yet, Fen is openly contemptuous of Nell’s book’s success and also materially ambitious as he arranges a raid to steal the one and only “writing” sample of indigenous tribes. Whether real or imaginary, but Fen takes his place among theoretically open-minded men who cannot bear the success of their spouses. The brewing conflict between Bankson and Fen never blows into open, the two men remain collegial to each other. What about Nell? Does she jump out of the pages of the novel? She makes a grand entrance as the wounded warrior, fearless, and selfless. Nonetheless, we see the ambition as she rejects the nearby tribes, and hence the safe harbor Bankson offers for her. We see that Nell has the courage to seek the next, never taking comfort in what she has at hand. We hear her assessment: “I love that Amy Lowell poem when I first read it, how her lover was like red wine at the beginning and then became bread. But that has not happened to me. My loves remain wine to me, yet I become too quickly bread to them.” So what are we to make of her sailing away with Fen after Fen had shown his naked ambitions, after she had slept with Bankson? Having learned that she had ditched her earlier lover, Helen, for Fen, and her desire to remain wine to her loves, what do we make of her departure with Fen, leaving Bankson behind? Was she trying to be evasive to avoid being turned into Bankson’s bread? Or was it a re-enactment of the post-conflict separation of the warrior parties, as the winner leaves with the trophy, the vanquished cry out: “Go. Go to your beautiful dance, your beautiful ceremonies. And we will buy our dead.” Could it be that Nell felt like a victor, her methodologies having unearthed a rare, female-dominated society and Fen found his proof of writing, with Bankson as the vanquished, left alone with his ineffective genealogies? Nell’s tragic decision was perhaps linked to her earlier comments on the indigenous people: “They know their ancestors have a plan for them. There’s no sense that it was wrong. Tragedy is based on this sense that there’s been a terrible mistake.” Perhaps that is reading too much into it. Perhaps my efforts to read more into it is the discomfort of observing the novel’s central character to remain the same, almost inert despite whatever happens around her. In both Fen and Bankson, we observe significant tectonic shifts in character, yet Nell remains almost numb to what is happening around her. Although she is advertised as the change agent, she herself remains steady, almost boringly predictable. Always charging forward, nagging, and haggling to get what she wants, either a piece of information or a baby. In the real life, Margaret Mead’s descriptions of a female-dominated society had been mostly discredited: her evidence could not be replicated. In the novel, Nell vanishes with her myths as well.

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | #25,508 in Kindle Store ( See Top 100 in Kindle Store ) #70 in Biographical & Autofiction #119 in Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Literary Fiction #182 in Historical Literary Fiction |

## Images

![Euphoria - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/91ipEsDNLwL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Absolutely wonderful!
*by S***Y on March 24, 2026*

I am a little bit obsessed with this book. It's funny because even at the 75% point I wasn't really sure of the point of the book. Don't get me wrong - the writing is fantastic, the story was interesting, but I was unsure of the point of the book. And then, by the end, I loved everything about it. King is a storyteller. She's a fantastic writer. I loved the impetus for her writing this book - I love how she framed it, and I love all of the characters. I finished the book and immediately ordered two biographies of Margaret Meade and one of her books. Looking back, I really think the feeling I got upon finishing the book was the euphoric feeling described in the book (the one anthropologists feel while studying individuals). I loved all the anthropology talk (and the debating about the best ways to write ethnographies (and study people). I already want to go back and read it again!

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Great mix of anthropology, suspense, and male guileless
*by A***I on December 31, 2014*

The publication of this book coincided with my recent interest in Anthropology and hence my reading of it was more pleasurable than it would otherwise be. I do recommend anyone attempting this book to do some reading on basic tenets of anthropology of indigenous tribes. Some preliminary background makes this even more fun to read. It would also be useful to learn a little bit about Margaret Mead, an American anthropologist who became famous during the interwar years, before sitting down with this book. Good news is that this is predominantly fiction! It is based on the life of Margaret Mead, appearing here as Nell Stone, but does not trace out her entire life story, probably a wise decision by Lily King. The male characters Fen, the dark-hearted Aussie, and Bankson, the gentlemanly Brit, are based on Margaret Mead’s real life husbands. I like the idea of changing the arc of life in a biographical fiction, as in this case, as it grips the reader not only from “How?” angle, but also from the “What?” angle. My sense was that the novel was somewhat truncated after Chapter 28. One could debate whether the novel had enough momentum left at that point to continue on in the civilized world. Perhaps the quick wrap-up of characters’ lives in the remaining chapters was a good way to satisfy some readers’ curiosity and also keep the novel at a commercially attractive length. There is a fair amount of authentic-sounding detail about the work habits of anthropologists and their life among indigenous tribes. However, I did not know what to make of the bits that seemed a bit forced. On page 182, we get a description of “scarification,” a ritual to make cuts to the initiate’s body and infect them with salt to get a crocodile like skin features, and Bankson’s reactions to it: “I had seen dozens of sacrifications, but it does not get any easier.” Well, perhaps this bit tells us a bit more about the tribe, reinforces Bankson’s humanistic outlook, and help complete the portrait of an anthropologist. Perhaps these are useful bits, do we absolutely have to have psychoanalytic backgrounds attached to all characters? Does that enrich them, or trivialize their pursuits? The narrative point of view alternating between Nell and Bankson propels the story forward at a good clip, while reaching back to characters’ formative years. It is a bit over the top to learn on page 107 that Nell, “as a little girl in bed at night, when other girls were wishing for ponies or roller skates, wished for a band of gypsies to climb up into her window and take her away with them to teach her their language and their customs…. She would tell her family all about these people.” Bankson’s science oriented family putting pressure on the siblings, and the elder brother being killed in the Great War, sound a bit canned. We are also given the background of Bankson’s failed suicide, perhaps following in the footsteps of his other brother, in an exquisite paragraph where his native rescuers either have no concept of suicide or never suspect it “The stones are beautiful, but leave them on land before you swim. And do not swim in clothes. This is also dangerous. And do not swim alone. Being alone you will only come to harm.” Later in the book, when Bankson mentions his failed suicide attempt to Nell, he gets no reaction from her. In a way, Bankson commits scientific suicide by getting swept into Nell’s paradigm, but she is as helpful to him on that front as the natives who rescued Bankson from his real suicide attempt. Fen’s background is related to us through his musings over an outwardly subconscious Bankson. We learn about his family’s incestuous entrapment of his younger sister by his band of brothers: ….. These traumas of his past, come to explain his violent streak! Nell thinks that “Fen didn’t want to study natives; he wanted to be a native. His attraction to anthropology was not to puzzle out the history of humanity… It was to live without shoes and eat from his hands and fart in public.” Yet, Fen is openly contemptuous of Nell’s book’s success and also materially ambitious as he arranges a raid to steal the one and only “writing” sample of indigenous tribes. Whether real or imaginary, but Fen takes his place among theoretically open-minded men who cannot bear the success of their spouses. The brewing conflict between Bankson and Fen never blows into open, the two men remain collegial to each other. What about Nell? Does she jump out of the pages of the novel? She makes a grand entrance as the wounded warrior, fearless, and selfless. Nonetheless, we see the ambition as she rejects the nearby tribes, and hence the safe harbor Bankson offers for her. We see that Nell has the courage to seek the next, never taking comfort in what she has at hand. We hear her assessment: “I love that Amy Lowell poem when I first read it, how her lover was like red wine at the beginning and then became bread. But that has not happened to me. My loves remain wine to me, yet I become too quickly bread to them.” So what are we to make of her sailing away with Fen after Fen had shown his naked ambitions, after she had slept with Bankson? Having learned that she had ditched her earlier lover, Helen, for Fen, and her desire to remain wine to her loves, what do we make of her departure with Fen, leaving Bankson behind? Was she trying to be evasive to avoid being turned into Bankson’s bread? Or was it a re-enactment of the post-conflict separation of the warrior parties, as the winner leaves with the trophy, the vanquished cry out: “Go. Go to your beautiful dance, your beautiful ceremonies. And we will buy our dead.” Could it be that Nell felt like a victor, her methodologies having unearthed a rare, female-dominated society and Fen found his proof of writing, with Bankson as the vanquished, left alone with his ineffective genealogies? Nell’s tragic decision was perhaps linked to her earlier comments on the indigenous people: “They know their ancestors have a plan for them. There’s no sense that it was wrong. Tragedy is based on this sense that there’s been a terrible mistake.” Perhaps that is reading too much into it. Perhaps my efforts to read more into it is the discomfort of observing the novel’s central character to remain the same, almost inert despite whatever happens around her. In both Fen and Bankson, we observe significant tectonic shifts in character, yet Nell remains almost numb to what is happening around her. Although she is advertised as the change agent, she herself remains steady, almost boringly predictable. Always charging forward, nagging, and haggling to get what she wants, either a piece of information or a baby. In the real life, Margaret Mead’s descriptions of a female-dominated society had been mostly discredited: her evidence could not be replicated. In the novel, Nell vanishes with her myths as well.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ I wish I could give it more stars.
*by A***E on January 24, 2018*

I usually finish a book, and write the review the next day, at the very latest. This time, I’ve been ruminating about and contemplating what to write, not agonizing, but definitely obsessing a little, for over a week. I needed this time, because I loved this story and these characters so much. Lily King is obviously a brilliant and inspired writer, and I felt the same way when I was reading Euphoria (inspired, not brilliant (I wish!)). It’s the fascinating and dramatic tale of a love triangle, set in 1930’s New Guinea. The three characters involved are anthropologists, two men and a woman. While they’re experiencing their own desire-fueled, jealous emotional turbulence, they’re exploring, and documenting the culture and customs of the Tam tribe, including the gender-bending roles and rituals between the men and women of the tribe. Nell Stone, the woman, is married to Schuyler Fenwick (Fen), and they’ve left the Mumbanyo tribe (“fierce warriors”) because Nell couldn’t relate to, or tolerate the tribe’s violent and aggressive nature. Fen, however, resents her because they left. He also resents her accomplishment. She has written a best seller, and is currently a famous anthropologist. She has kept her maiden name. He seems to feel like he’s merely regarded as Nell Stone’s husband. She wants to stay married to him. She wants very much to have a child. There have been some tragic and dark incidents involving babies, Nell’s own, and the babies of the Mumbanyo tribe. These incidents torture and haunt Nell. Let’s get the one complaint out of the way (not enough to subtract a star, or even a fraction of a star – actually, I wish I could give this book more than five stars). Sometimes the author hints darkly at an event instead of clearly explaining. She infers. Now, some literary-type readers prefer the subtlety of inferences. I admire those who understand them. I do not consider them posers. I love the ambiguities and possibilities of an unanswered (or unanswerable) question. But, in this instance, and some others, I wish I knew more about what happened before the story opens, especially Fen’s dark past, as part of a huge family, living in isolation in the Australian outback. I’m pretty sure about the type of behaviors that this one, dark hint refers to, but not entirely sure. The resulting twist in Fen’s character, however, is more important than the particular, salacious details of his nefarious family history, and his acceptance and expectation of evil and violence in every civilization steers his actions as an adult anthropologist living with the tribes along the banks of the Sepik River (“flamboyantly serpentine, the Amazon of the South Pacific” – see? Isn’t she brilliant?). Of the three main characters, Fen is the only one who doesn’t have a narrative voice. The reader only knows him through the first person narration of Andrew Bankson, and the third person limited narration of his wife, Nell Stone (loosely based on the real-life anthropologist Margaret Mead). We only get to hear his voice through dialogue and observe his actions. He’s the least sympathetic character throughout. Although I did not love him as a person, I loved the creation of him, the complexity of his sometimes-evil nature. And, I understood him, although I could never empathize with him. I’ve met him many times, here in the real world. He reminds me of so many men I’ve known well. He’s Australian, but in many ways, like an American man. So, let’s get on with my love letter to Lily King. I plunged under, into the world she created with her words, and did not care to come up for air, ever. I once had a writing teacher who told us to create a list when we got “stuck”. Here’s the best list I’ve ever read (describing Andrew Bankson’s past): “The house I grew up in there, Hemsley House, had been in the possession of Bankson scientists for three generations, its every desktop, drawer, and wardrobe stuffed with scientist’s remnants: spyglasses, test tubes, finger scales, pocket magnifiers, loupes, compasses, and a brass telescope; boxes of glass slides, and ento pins, geodes, fossils, bones, teeth, petrified wood, framed beetles and butterflies, and thousands of loose insect carcasses that turned to powder upon contact.” A positively Dickensian list, but better, less preposterously wordy and more utilitarian. I wanted to walk through Hemsley House, and touch those things. In a way, I felt like I had. I could go on and on. I underlined passages and made notations in the margins. I lived inside these pages. There are so many layers, and so many insights and ideas to explore and rethink. I keep going back. After all, anthropology is the study of humans and their lives, their relationships to each other and to their environment, their art, their chronicles. It’s everything. I keep going back to a diagram (a “grid”) that Fen, Andrew and Nell create together, categorizing personalities into the four main directions on a compass. You don’t have to be just North, South, East, or West, though, you can be a Northwest personality, or a Southeast personality. This novel is so complex and so deep. It asks so many beautifully unanswerable questions. Above all, this story leaves the reader with a way to look at, appreciate and observe cultures that are highly civilized, but considered to be primitive and inferior to traditional Western culture. These characters view anthropology through a wide, panoramic lens, a zoom lens, a microscopic lens, and just about any other lens you can think of, including no lens, just immersion. It’s also about how our ideas, like our children, take on a life of their own once they’re launched out into the world. You can take aim, but you have no control after they’re flying free. It’s about how we think and work as individuals and how we work collectively. It’s about everything that’s important in life.

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*Last updated: 2026-06-03*