There are certain tribes in the middle Sepik that eat raw bat. A certain kind of raw bat is a delicacy.

To go back to my childhood, I experienced lots of different family cultures, all the while feeling like none of them were mine.

I always had this put-together family, and I always identified as the outsider. And that's a position where I feel most comfortable, and yet I feel an incredible longing to belong. That is really a strong feeling from my childhood - a desire to be part of a group.

I'm very interested in the way people interact emotionally.

I have three stepfamilies as well as my family of origin. I've had to adjust to them and also go back and forth among them. I became an observer of human nature because when you are in those situations you have to be.

I'm always interested in a claustrophobic situation where people might be powerless to do things.

Anthropology is separated from mass reading, and that is something that bothered Margaret Mead. She always said that she wrote everything for her grandmother, in a way that her grandmother could understand what she was saying.