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Fieldwork
Mischa Berlinski
Shortlisted for the American National Book Award for Fiction.
A gripping and richly intelligent first novel of anthropologists, missionaries, demon possession, sexual taboos, murder, and an obsessed young reporter:
‘This is a great story . . . You can’t stop reading until midnight (good), and you don’t hate yourself in the morning (better).’ Stephen King
When his girlfriend takes a job in northern Thailand, Mischa goes along for the ride, finding work as a freelance reporter for an English-language newspaper. One drunken evening a fellow expat tips him off to a story. A charismatic American anthropologist serving a life sentence for murder, Martiya van der Leun, has been found dead in her prison cell – she has committed suicide. What begins as mild curiosity in the case rapidly becomes an obsession, as Mischa seeks to reconstruct the details of Martiya’s life – and death.
His search draws him deep into her world. He interviews her colleagues, seeks out the family of her victim, and eventually travels into the Thai hills, into the world of the remote Dyalo tribe who Martiya studied and lived among. What he uncovers is a tragic love story – of a woman who fell in love with the field and then, much later and with fatal consequences, fell in love with one of her subjects.
From the US reviews of Fieldwork:
‘Exuberant and inventive, affectionate toward its characters but not indulgent of them… A quirky, often brilliant debut, bounced along by limitless energy, its wry tone not detracting from its thoughtfulness.’ Hilary Mantel, New York Review of Books
‘Fieldwork is that rare thing – an entertainingly readable novel of ideas . . . Berlinski’s narrative is brilliantly plotted and builds to a shattering but entirely credible conclusion.’Los Angeles Times
About the author
Mischa Berlinski was born in New York in 1973. He studied classics at the University of California at Berkeley and Columbia College and has worked as a journalist in Thailand. Fieldwork is his first novel.
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Trade Paperback
Published August 2008
320 pages
ISBN: 978 1 84354 764 8
RRP: £11.99