SALON

Thursday, Jun 11, 1998 7:00 PM UTC

The Undiscovered Country

Gary Krist reviews 'The Undiscovered Country' by Samantha Gillison.

By

Topics: Books,

Not many couples these days would try to save their marriage by moving to the jungles of Papua New Guinea. And this is probably just as well, given the island’s drenching rainstorms, ubiquitous marsupial rats and flamboyantly awful parasites (I, at least, don’t think that being host to a 30-foot tapeworm would do my love life any good). But for Peter and June Campbell, the American couple in Samantha Gillison’s “The Undiscovered Country,” the prospect of revitalizing their relationship in the wild isn’t so far-fetched. As Peter writes in a letter home: “I think we decided to come here so far away from home, from the familiar, to get closer to each other, to penetrate the thick membrane that separated us from each other in ‘civilization.’”

This is a highly romantic notion, of course, but “The Undiscovered Country” is hardly a romantic book. And sure enough, Peter, June and their daughter Taylor don’t exactly thrive as a family once they take up residence in the remote mountain villages of Abini, where Peter has come to do fieldwork toward his doctorate. Financed with inheritance money from June’s family, the Campbells hunker down for a year in the shadow of Mount Philip, determined to complete a study on blood parasites. Instead, they succumb to a creeping spiritual decay far more insidious than anything the local microorganisms can provoke.

Samantha Gillison has written an intense and frightening first novel, a keenly observed domestic drama played out against a backdrop of exotic flora and fauna — think “Scenes From a Marriage” as filmed by a crew from National Geographic. Her work has drawn comparisons to that of Somerset Maugham and Graham Greene, but the writer she resembles most is Paul Bowles, who made a career of tracing the moral and physical collapse of privileged Americans in malignant foreign climes. Like Bowles, Gillison has mastered the art of communicating as much through the silences between people as through their speeches. And she’s learned the neat Bowlesian trick of blurring the thin line between revelation and delirium in her characters’ perceptions, mingling true insight with the false vision of minds deranged by sickness, exhaustion and acute, end-stage culture shock.

But the novel’s real strength is its utterly persuasive conjuring of life in the New Guinea highlands. Gillison renders the grotesque, threatening beauty of the landscape — as well as the odd elusiveness of contacts between the Campbells and the local population — with an authority unusual in a first-time novelist. I do wish she’d done more to differentiate the native Abini villagers as individuals; too often they just blend into the scenery, as opaque as the surrounding mountains. For the most part, though, “The Undiscovered Country” is an exceptional feat of storytelling, as vivid and powerful as a malaria dream — and just as hard to shake from your system.

Gary Krist is the author of the novels "Bad Chemistry" and "Chaos Theory." More Gary Krist.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 0 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
From global warming to fluoride: Why do people deny science? An interesting question.
51 points52 points | 61 comments
vote
Developers evict historic women’s shelter to build luxury hotel - The 104-yr-old Anna Louise Inn has ended its 2-year legal battle with a Fortune 500 company & will now move. Many view the victory of the insurance company over a community touchstone as a major blow to the city.
34 points35 points | 2 comments
vote
Anonymous rallies behind Kaitlyn Hunt
31 points32 points | 35 comments
vote
The GOP Is the 'Party of Crybabies' for Demanding No One Criticize Their Policies or Donors
23 points24 points | comment
vote
Illinois' fracking and coal rush is a national crisis: Illinois and its Mississippi River banks are becoming another ground zero in the war over climate change.
20 points21 points | comment

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: Chekhov's story mirrors Russia's own

Recommendations