Field Guide: A Novel

In this mesmerizing first novel, a young American graduate student abandons her research in the Australian rain forest to investigate her professor’s mysterious disappearance.

Still unsure about her brother’s drowning death—was it an accident, or suicide?—Annabel Mendelssohn leaves her laboratory job in Chicago for a remote region of Australia, where she has a grant to study spectacled fruit bats as part of a field studies program. She spends her time between classes watching bats, discovering waterfalls, and picking leeches out of her eyes. She emails her sister, Alice, who has settled for the more domesticated science of grants administration.

Annabel is ambitious and eccentric, and feels alienated from her juvenile, sex-obsessed roommate. Still, she finds herself attracted to her mentor, the reckless and brilliant John Goode. Professor Goode has recently separated from his wife, alienating his family. When he suddenly disappears, Annabel becomes driven to find him.

Meanwhile, after learning of his father’s disappearance, Leon Goode leaves his job as an educator at the Boston Museum of Science to join the search. In the vibrant, unpredictable rain forest, Annabel and Leon come to realize the truth reveals itself in more ways than one. This deftly written and suspenseful tale casts a spell over heart and mind.

“A compelling, quirky winner.” — Glamour magazine

“. . .Gross has an amazing ability to convey the subtlest emotional shifts; her novel thrums with psychological intensity. . . In Annabel, she’s created a quirky character with the staying power of L.M. Montgomery’s Anne Shirley. Stunning. A remarkable debut.”
— Kirkus Reviews (starred)

“The certitudes of scientific research yield to the unsolvable mysteries of emotional connection in this accomplished debut . . . Gross's deceptively spare style glistens with pungent language and precise aperçus.”
— Publisher's Weekly

“. . . this beautifully written debut novel offers appealing characters and provides a unique view into the sensuous scientific world of field study with all of its attendant hardships and marvels. Recommended for all public libraries.” — Library Journal

“. . . credible and inspiring.” — Booklist

“This confident debut from Gwendolen Gross lives up to her cleverly compact title, bringing the reader — and its graduate-student heroine, Annabel Mendelssohn — into very close contact with the Australian rain forest . . . Gross gamely hacks her way through the underbrush of this treacherous Eden with great aplomb, offering up a lively report comparing and contrasting the virgin rain forest with the tangled thickets of human desire, the clamorous society of guano-generating fruit bats with our own, and showing that the path to wisdom is paved with bloodsucking leeches that get stuck between your toes.” — Los Angeles Times

“In her beautifully written and insightful first novel, Gwendolen Gross takes readers into the wilds of Australia and the intricacies of the human heart . . . Readers will enjoy accompanying Annabel on a journey toward understanding of love, loyalty and connections. The journey is made all the richer by the landscape, flora and fauna that surround it, which Gross describes knowingly and sympathetically.”
— Winston-Salem Journal

“. . .Field Guide is a sweet libation.”
— Philadelphia Weekly

“. . . Gross's appeal for the value of intimacy has an important place . . . [Field Guide] conveys the aesthetics of science, the wonder and the desire that propel investigation.” — Chicago Tribune

“[One of] two novels that are sure to pique the interest of readers searching for a new voice.” — PW Daily

“. . . a finely crafted novel pulsing with little jolts of meaning, connection, and perception.”
— Katharine Weber, author of Triangle: A Novel

“A wise and moving novel about what it means to observe the world intimately. . . Gwendolen Gross leads us into lush, fascinating territory and then asks us to look long and hard.”
— Elizabeth Graver, author of The Honey Thief

“Field Guide hums with a psychological intensity, leavened with lively and often acerbic wit that propels the narrative along, making this a satisfying, pleasurable, and thought-provoking novel. Even the most minor characters are constructed in complicated emotional terms. It is Annabel, however, who carries the book with her eccentricities, frustrations, and heightened self-awareness. She's a stunning, difficult character--a grown-up, 21st-century Anne of Green Gables. She's honest, lovable, and sometimes annoying, but always compelling.”
— Joanna Smith Rakoff, Oberlin Alumni Magazine

The book stirs a satisfying blend of natural history, suspense, and romance, shifting gears and hopping continents, while the primary plot—the disappearance of Professor John Goode
— Smithsonian Zoogoer Magazine

Field Guide is on the Bates College recommended summer reading list for 2003, Central Virginia Communities summer reading list for summer 2001, 52Books.org book list of the week - mysteries that take place in academia.