The Mapmaker's Wife: A True Tale of Love, Murder, and Survival in the Amazon by Robert Whitaker
rating: 4 of 5 stars
This book tells a really amazing story. A scientific expedition from France heads to Peru where each member of the team undergoes sometimes unbelievable hardships in pursuit of their research. But the most amazing story of all, to my mind, is the title story: one of the French scientists marries a local girl (and at 13 she was a girl), who, twenty three years later sets off across the Amazon to be reunited with him.
I would not want to trek the Amazon today, and if I did I would have the luxury of GPS, weapons, maps, pants, knowledge that people had succeeded before me; she had none of these things. Of the 30+ people she set off with (most of them servants and slaves) only four survived. The other three survivors took the only watercraft and traveled that way. She hiked through the Amazon for weeks until she was rescued by a native couple.
Whitaker does a great job of threading together stories from the scientific exploration, the personalities of the individuals, the love affair, the politics, the horrible treatment of anyone not an elite Spaniard in Colonial Peru, and the state of nature in the Amazon into one gripping story.
I don't want to say much more because I'm afraid I would spoil the book for anyone planning to read it, but I really encourage you to read it! I found it especially fascinating to learn more about the extremely limited roles women were allowed to have in Colonial Peru and to see how one woman broke through those restrictions in one really dramatic way.
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