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Tale Takes Readers On A Wild Journey

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ANDREA BRUNAIS

Published: October 12, 2007

"The Sound of Butterflies" by Rachael King (William Morrow, $24.95)

Sophie, a young housewife escaping from a controlling father, and Thomas, her butterfly-collecting husband, begin their young adult lives as hard-working people living a conventional 1903 lifestyle. They assume they will resume those patterns once Thomas returns from Brazil after a naturalists' safari.

But Thomas returns on a train from Liverpool in an almost catatonic state, broken and mute. Sophie must figure out how to nurture him while piecing together the story of a journey he is unable to recount.

New Zealand author Rachael King's elegant, understated writing style takes the reader from the parlors of England to the wilds of the Brazil. As the judgmental civilities of her small town constrain Sophie's behavior, Thomas endures bumpy travels over land and water punctuated by stops at primitive campsites. Blazing heat, stinging insects and delirium-producing fevers are the prices he must pay to pursue a specimen of butterfly rumored to exist in the Amazon.

From diaries that return with Thomas, Sophie learns about the odd behavior of his traveling companions and the increasing menace of the trip's underwriter, a man named Santos. His fellow naturalists collect specimens of birds and animals without a thought to their decimation of species.

Worse, are the torture and ill treatment the rubber barons inflict on the enslaved Indians who make up their work force.

Book-jacket blurbs compare this first novel to rich works such as "The Piano Tuner" and "The Painted Veil." Those are good comparisons. "The Sound of Butterflies" enchants and informs even as it transports the reader to times and places we would like to disavow but make up our emotional and scientific heritages.

Andrea Brunais is a freelance writer living in Tampa.

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