Prodigal Summer is the second book I have read by much-lauded author Barbara Kingsolver. The first was The Poisonwood Bible, a novel about the tribulations of an American missionary family in the Belgian Congo, which was a runaway best-seller, and which I would highly recommend. I would also recommend Prodigal Summer (2000, Harper Collins) for many of the same reasons, the main one being authenticity. Kingsolver must have had to do copious research to write The Poisonwood Bible, which not only captures the mood of a remote African village, its daily operations and its attitude towards the white family (as well as the family's attitudes, which varied wildly from member to member), but also the historical data surrounding Patrice Lumumba's failed bid to throw off the yoke of colonial oppression. Even though the storyline predates me and I am no Central African scholar, everything rings true.
In Prodigal
Summer ,
the authenticity is closer to home: The story is set in the
Appalachian mountain region of Virginia, where Barbara Kingsolver and
her husband have a farm in real life. Although only one of her
characters is an actual biologist (the author has a graduate degree
in biology and co-writes natural history articles with her husband,
Steven Hopp), all of the main characters have some connection to the
land and its creatures: Deanna, the forest ranger who enjoys her
solitary life maintaining trails and recording wildlife activity on
Zebulon Mountain until some unexpected visitors (one of whom is
human) throw her into a torrent of doubt and longing; Garnett, an
elderly widower obsessed with propagating a blight-resistant chestnut
tree and also a tad obsessed with his next-door-neighbor, a sweet but
straight-talking apple grower who has vastly differing ideas from
Garnett's on many things, from evolution to pesticide use; and Lusa,
a city-girl biologist who finds herself plunked down on her new
husband's farm, communing with the moths that are much easier to deal
with than her gossiping, scornful in-laws.
At first, each one
of these stories is told in apparent isolation, despite their common
geography. And yet, like a spreading honeysuckle vine, tendrils of
each plotline begin to creep together, eventually encircling and
intertwining the narratives of the characters and their relationships
to one another. I find this tying-together process delightful: each
instance of reference to one story from within another is like a cool
inside joke that the reader becomes privy to: "Oho,
so that's who
she was talking about!" It's like a reward for paying attention,
which is no problem with this well-paced book.
Another
thing that Barbara Kingsolver can do profoundly well is get inside
her characters' heads. In The
Poisonwood Bible,
each chapter was related by alternating characters--the four
daughters and the wife of the missionary preacher--and it was quite
clear that each character had her own very specific personality and
point of view. In Prodigal
Summer,
the three tales are told not in first person but nonetheless squarely
from the point of view of each main character, whose storylines even
have their own titles (a device that makes it easy to sort out which
story you are reading, but also sets a theme for each one): Deanna's
is called "Predators", Garnett's is "Old Chestnuts",
and Lusa's is "Moth Love". As you read, these titles take
on different shades of meaning: Are old folks Garnett and his
neighbor the "Old Chestnuts", or does that refer to the
once-mighty tree, now felled by blight, that used to be Garnett's
family's fortune? Or is it a reference to things you've heard over
and over, that may or may not be true? This adds even more depth to
your experience of the novel.
One point to make: even though
Kingsolver writes convincingly from the point of view of an older man
in Garnett's story, this novel may be perceived as a "chick
book" because it is primarily about relationships. However, it's
not just about male/female and family relationships, but also about
our relationship with the land-its natural checks and balances,
predators and prey, and how humans can interact well or poorly with
it-and with nature in general, including human nature. There is much
to be learned in this book, from why you should add a dash of vinegar
when canning cherries to why moths fly in spirals, and how to care
for one another in the face of grief and loss.
Valuable life
lessons, all.
Here are some reviews for other books you might like:
https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2022/02/review-of-unless-novel-by-carol-shields.html
https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2022/02/review-of-james-pattersons-quickie.html
