So it is with siblings Danny and Maeve Conroy, born seven years apart. This story, it seems to me is about the longings of people who care for each other, often at variance with each other, resulting in wounds of estrangement, with which we may spend a lifetime trying to come to terms. Summary: Two siblings, Maeve and Danny, seek to come to terms with past losses of parents, and their childhood home, a striking three-story home built by a Dutch couple. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.The Dutch House, Ann Patchett. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor.

Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at for further information. Our reviewer, Alan Cheuse, teaches writing at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.Ĭopyright © 2011 NPR. NORRIS: The book is 'State of Wonder' by Ann Patchett. This jungle may bug the characters but it's not so hard on the reader. The book is serious, but also so pleasurable that you hope it won't end. All of this works beautifully against the background of the unfolding loyalties and rivalries among the various researchers at the tribal grounds where grows the so-called Martin tree that may be at the root of all the late-life fertility. She butts heads with her old medical professor and at one point battles a huge anaconda. Marina, the lab doc, has her problems living in the jungle. She makes us feel quite at home among the tribe whose women bear children late into life. She gives us the jungle and its flora and fauna, especially its bugs, in all of its fascinating and worrisome reality. So the set-up is slow, but the Amazon setting is something Patchett does rather marvelously. She flies to the Amazonian town of Manaus and eventually heads into the jungly territory of the Amazon. This doctor is an Indian-American named Marina Singh. The company next sends the dead doctor's lab partner, who's also a former medical student of the recalcitrant Dr.

Swenson's research sends a company doctor down to ascertain the state of her progress. The big Minnesota drug company sponsoring Dr. Finding the essence of that drug is the goal of research performed deep in the Amazon delta by an elusive physician named Annick Swenson. There's a drug that allows women to become pregnant into their 70s and beyond.

It's the latest novel from Ann Patchett called 'State of Wonder.'ĪLAN CHEUSE: The set-up for Patchett's ultimately quite attractive plot is a bit slow. Now a piece of literary fiction about a medical mystery deep in the Amazonian jungle.

Ann patchett state of wonder summary