Author Ann Patchett recalls travails in Amazon
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Ann Patchett.
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It's early in the morning in Nashville, Tenn., and Ann Patchett is talking softly so she doesn't awaken her parents, who are house guests.
The author is a confirmed homebody, but she traveled to South America in 2009 to do research for her latest book, "State of Wonder." The novel's main character, Marina Singh, is a research scientist who lives in Minnesota and journeys to the Amazon after one of her longtime colleagues, Anders Eckman, dies there.
Her problem was logistical -- finding the right kind of boat in Brazil, where the novel is set.
"There were either cruise ships or rafts. There was nothing in between," said the author, who will speak Monday night for Literary Evenings, Monday Night Lecture Series, at Oakland's Carnegie Music Hall.
Where: Literary Evenings, Monday Night Lecture Series, at Carnegie Music Hall, Oakland.
When: 7:30 p.m. Monday.
Tickets: $15 and $25, www.pittsburghlectures.org or 412-622-8866.
With the help of an editor at the late Gourmet Magazine, she arranged to travel on a boat in Peru for 10 days in spring 2009. With her was Greg Greer, a naturalist based in Atlanta.
"He did, in fact, stop the little open boat we were in, stuck his hand in the water and pulled a 12-foot anaconda into the boat. He goes all over the world picking up snakes," she said.
Ms. Patchett, who grew up on a farm in Tennessee, has seen plenty of reptiles.
"I'm not afraid of snakes. But nobody wants to be in an open boat in the Amazon with an anaconda. He kept the snake in the boat for about 20 minutes. There's no place to go. You can't jump in the water. You can't paddle for shore.
"The snake smelled like nothing I could ever describe to you. This was just off the charts. You've got to throw your clothes away when you get home," Ms. Patchett said.
Mr. Greer also told her what kinds of lizards populate the Amazon and that the most painful insect bite you can have comes from a fire ant.
While Dr. Singh is used to a charted life inside a pharmaceutical company's laboratory, the Amazon is uncharted territory.
"In making this journey, Marina is giving birth to a new self and also confronting her demons. It's about a journey of loss, of shaking off the layers of your self. There is something very Buddhist about the process that Marina goes through. She loses her comfort, her possessions. She loses her notions of who she is," Ms. Patchett said.
First Published November 19, 2011 12:00 am
