Although Mischa Berlinski's Fieldwork loses steam near the end, it is still a fascinating read. Martiya van der Leun is an American cultural anthropologist in Thailand studying the Dyalo people. Parallel to her story is the saga of the Walker family of missionaries and their quest to convert the Dyalo to Christianity. Oddly enough, the story of the Walkers is the more captivating, spanning multiple generations of enthusiastic evangelists. By Martiya's own admission, daily living in a pre-literate society is tedious and uninspiring—not the fulfilling experience that she expected "fieldwork" to be. From the beginning, the novel presents us with a mystery. Martiya, convicted of the murder of David Walker, has committed suicide in prison. The narrator, a free-lance writer in Thailand, whose name is the author's, researches the events that led to the murder by interviewing the Walker family, as well as Martiya's associates and friends in both the U.S. and Thailand. Especially interesting is the victim himself, who finds his calling during his stint as a Dead Head.
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