Magic of Amazon is author's muse

ART really did imitate life for writer Ann Patchett, whose sixth novel draws on her own travel adventures in South America.

Ann Patchett

DOWN a nameless Amazon River tributary - many kilometres from civilisation - author Ann Patchett feared for her life.

A fellow traveller had grabbed a 4.6m anaconda from the water and brought it into their tiny boat.

"For 20 minutes he fought this snake that was trying to eat his head off," says Patchett, speaking from her home in Nashville, in the US. "It turns out he was a professional naturalist and snake handler, and knew what he was doing . . . but at the time we did not know this.

"I got that feeling that you would sell your soul to get out of that boat."

Patchett did extensive research for her sixth novel State of Wonder - including watching Werner Herzog's famous movie Fitzcarraldo (1982) about the rubber industry in Peru - but it was her own visit to Brazil which provided her with her most invaluable material.

Patchett, 47, uses the anaconda episode in State of Wonder when local guide, Benoit, pulls a giant snake on board from the Rio Negro River.

She writes: "He dove that same hand down through the leaves and began to pull the colossus of all snakes into the boat . . . the reptile's long, recurved teeth snapped ferociously into the air."

It is a character-defining scene for protagonist, meek scientist Marina Singh, who finds an inner-strength to kill the anaconda with a machete when it wraps itself around a deaf child in her care.

"It's so much fun to write a book which asks physical, emotional and intellectual questions with actual physical action," Patchett says.

State of Wonder opens when Marina is sent to investigate the death of her lab partner Anders Eckman in the Amazon jungle. Her employer, Vogel Pharmaceutical, has a team led by Dr Annick Swenson secretly developing a wonder drug from the bark of a tree that enables women of all ages to fall pregnant.

It turns into a harrowing journey for Marina who re-faces her mesmeric former mentor, Dr Swenson. Twenty years earlier, during her gynaecology residency under Dr Swenson, Marina maimed a baby during a caesarian delivery.

Many reviewers have compared State of Wonder with Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (1902) about ivory trader Marlow who is sent into the depths of the African jungle on the Congo River to find the evil Kurtz.

"I certainly didn't set out thinking to write Heart of Darkness . . . but the feeling (of the setting) is the same," she says. "Dr Swenson is not like Kurtz in that she has complete clarity. She is not crazy but very focused . . . nothing will stop her."

State of Wonder has also drawn comparisons with Patchett's Orange Prize-winning book Bel Canto (2001) when terrorists hold an eclectic group of people hostage, including a famous opera singer.

It's also set in South America, but a stronger common theme is the notion of confinement, and how people react in an uncompromising environment.

"I've always been fascinated with isolation, to stick people in a place they can't leave and where they form a society like Lord of the Flies," she says. "A limited space can give us an extreme depth of emotion."

Patchett says she realised the Amazon jungle could become like a prison after she went on a scary night hike.

"It's pitch black, tarantulas are everywhere . . . you are huddled with other people, literally holding on to each other's shirts and trying not to trip over tree roots," she says. "I found it so claustrophobic.

"I got a tremendous sense of how terrifying it would be if you became lost in the Amazon. It's so wild, there would be no way to find your way out . . . you would be dead in 10 minutes."

Patchett chose the Amazon as her setting because it "had the magic and possibility to develop a really fantastic drug."

It was also the ideal environment for redemption.

"Marina has lost everything. She loses her luggage, her phone, her clothes, her identity . . . but she finds her own strength and an ability to do some real good," she says.

Patchett says State of Wonder has been her easiest book to write, taking a record 18 months.

She enjoyed writing about a relationship when a teacher is "both beloved but terrifying".

Marina drops out of gynaecology after the tragic accident that left a baby blind and moves into the field of pharmacology instead.

"I wanted to write a book about how a teacher can shape a student's whole life . . . that they will do anything to please them even if the teacher doesn't know you . . . you are one of thousands of students," she says.

"I haven't had any teachers like Dr Swenson, I've had extremely loving and supportive teachers . . . I've also had teachers that have helped me become the person I am today."

Patchett has attended some of the best creative writing colleges in the US, including the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa and the Fine Arts Work Centre in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

It was there she received a seven-month fellowship which enabled her to write her first novel, The Patron Saint of Liars (1992).

At the time she was a waitress and working for magazines to fund her short story writing.

"I was 25 years old and I was very messed up, I felt I was off-track and I felt I had to write something that was big enough to turn my life around . . . to get back on track," she says.

Patchett has not looked back, completing two non-fiction books and five more novels including The Magician's Assistant (1997), short-listed for the Orange Prize, and Run (2007).

She has never felt any expectation to deliver another "blockbuster" like Bel Canto, which has sold 1.2 million copies and has been translated into 30 languages.

State of Wonder, Bloomsbury, $29.99.

Ann Patchett will be at the Brisbane Writers Festival (September 7-11).

For more information: www.brisbanewritersfestival.com.au