Fieldwork, by Mischa Berlinski

Yesterday was my last day of work in 2021 and I have been looking forward to my traditional year-end week of reading for a long time. The first thing on the agenda for my time off was finishing Fieldwork, which I started early last week. I had expected to get through it more quickly – I had a round-trip train ride to Philly over the weekend, which I was sure would get me through the book – but the last week and change proved busier than I anticipated and I wasn't always in the mood to read during what little downtime I had. Fieldwork is another book I found via Molly Young's Read Like the Wind newsletter. Like the last book I read on her recommendation, it's an anthropology novel. 

Fieldwork follows a journalist named Mischa Berlinski around Thailand as he investigates an anthropologist who has settled in the community where she started her fieldwork until being sent to prison for murdering a missionary, and her victim. Berlinski interviews several sources to learn about his subjects, and the book tells the story through these conversations, shifting its focus from the anthropologist murderer to the Dead Head missionary and back as he uncovers new information about one then the other. The resulting story reveals itself slowly and indirectly, but keeps our interest. So much so that when the narrative is occasionally interrupted by the narrator's own life and troubles, they feel very out of place. 

Now it's time for me to decide whether to return to any of the three books I started and set aside earlier this year, or to spend the next week and a half on new material. Stay tuned!