Fieldwork: A Novel [Paperback]

Mischa Berlinski (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 22, 2008

When his girlfriend takes a job in Thailand, Mischa Berlinski goes along for the ride, planning to enjoy himself and work as little as possible. But one evening a fellow expatriate tips him off to a story: a charismatic American anthropologist, Martiya van der Leun, has been found dead--a suicide--in the Thai prison where she was serving a life sentence for murder. Curious at first, Mischa is soon immersed in the details of her story. This brilliant, haunting novel expands into a mystery set among the Thai hill tribes, whose way of life became a battleground for the missionaries and the scientists living among them.

Fieldwork is a 2007 National Book Award Finalist for Fiction.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A fictional version of the author serves as the narrator of Berlinski's uneven first novel, a thriller set in Thailand. Mischa Berlinski, a reporter who's moved to northern Thailand to be with his schoolteacher girlfriend, Rachel, hears from his friend Josh about the suicide of Martiya van der Leun, an American anthropologist, in a Thai jail, where she was serving 50 years for murder. As Mischa begins to investigate Martiya's life and supposed crimes, he becomes increasingly obsessed with the woman. The complications that arise have the potential to be riveting, but the chatty narrative voice takes too many irrelevant detours to build much suspense. Still, Berlinski, who has been a journalist in Thailand, vividly portrays the exotic setting and brings depth and nuance to his depictions of the Thais. Buried within the excess verbiage is a lean, interesting tale about, among many other things, the differences between modern and tribal cultures. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Bookmarks Magazine

Mischa Berlinski originally intended to write an account of the real-life Lisu tribe of Thailand, but held scant interest in the project until he decided to fictionalize the natives and turned his research into a novel. In this readable and clever debut, told almost entirely in backstory, Berlinski explores the problems inherent in trying to assume the perspective of another person or culture and the enduring conflict between faith and science. While he treats each perspective with genuine empathy, he refuses to take sides. Critics had a couple of complaints—a lagging secondary plot and a few descriptions with a textbook feel—but dismissed them as minor. They unanimously praised Berlinski’s wit, style, and intelligence in this atmospheric "novel that never fails to fascinate" (Minneapolis Star Tribune).
Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 356 pages
• Publisher: Picador (January 22, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312427468
• ISBN-13: 978-0312427467
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (60 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #92,151 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

56 of 63 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Book, March 8, 2007

By 

Lee Cheng "Book Dude" (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Fieldwork: A Novel (Hardcover)

Well-researched and excellently paced novel. I was fascinated by the level of detail and found the non-judgmental tone of the author refreshing. The novel ended up being an anthropological study of 3 separate tribes--the fictional Dyalo (who appear to be based on the Lisu tribe the novelist studied extensively--look on [...]), American Protestant missionaries, and the curious tribe that lives in figurative ivory towers who spend their lives studying other tribes. The author seems to suggest that the universal tragedy that serves as the basis for the murder mystery aspect of the novel is the result not merely a simplistic clash between East and West, but one that can happen to any peoples who do not share the same world view or to anyone in any culture subject to common human emotions.

Terrific read, and highly recommended. I look forward to Mr. Berlinksi's future literary output--maybe something set in Italy, or perhaps involving Haitian voodoo cults?

34 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Why I still read fiction, May 9, 2007

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D. C. Carrad "augustabookman" (Augusta, GA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Fieldwork: A Novel (Hardcover)

Ten stars. Best book I have read in ages. The author's prose style is impeccable and transparent, and he tells an interesting story in a manner fair to all the overlapping and colliding worlds he describes (missionaries, anthropologists, hill tribes, Thais, and his own generation's Western wanderers in the East). This is worth a million grad school MFA seminar meanderings. Terrific reading; hope he writes another book soon and many, many more in the future.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Vivid reading, April 30, 2007

By 

Reader "cvrcak1" (Boca Raton, FL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fieldwork: A Novel (Hardcover)

I decided to read this book after reading Steven King's review of it in the Entertainment Weekly magazine. I found that the beautiful thing about this book is that everyone who read it has opinion about it. It does not matter if it us the title of the book, the characters in the book, or the attempt to figure out which genre the book can be slated for. It is wonderful that all readers find Mischa Berlinski to be talented and smart young writer with a lot of potential. I have truly enjoyed this book because it speaks on many levels at once: beauty of Asia, complexity of people and cultures they are part of, religious conflict(s), tragedy of human existance no matter how hard we all try to understand it and conform to it in order to fit in the society we are part of. I strongly recommend this book -- it is a wonderful read.