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Prodigal Summer

**** By Barbara Kingsolver. Yes, I'm on a kick, which Joe helps along; this was a Christmas gift. It was also a beautiful and engaging read. I'm not a detail person. I hate reading long descriptions. Kingsolver doesn't go too long, but also she makes every detail so beautiful that I want to read it! She could go on for pages and wouldn't lose me! (Well... let's not push it...) She just has a way with words that makes the very act of reading sheer pleasure. The story's good, too. It takes place somewhere around the Virginia/Kentucky/Tennessee border and focuses on three people: Deanna, a reclusive National Wildlife ranger who loves coyotes; Lusa, a transplanted city woman who is widowed by her farmer husband; and Garnett, an elderly crotchety man whose sole goal in life is to bring back the American chestnut tree. Each of them is faced with changes that make them envision their futures and what home means entirely differently. Kingsolver always seems to have an environmental thread running through her stories. In this one, the theme (which she kind of hits you over the head with; well, we forgive you, Barbara) is that predators are necessary to maintain the balance of all other populations in nature. She gets into this both literally (coyotes in particular) and figuratively. The one aspect of the novel that might have bothered me — but didn't! — was the fact that we never see the three main characters meet. However, at the end, we know that their meeting is imminent, and that the connections will last into the future. I think this fact, plus the fact that the three's individual stories were so fascinating, made it okay. (I couldn't take it with Cold Mountain, a book which I never finished and thus can't really complain about; but then, I stopped reading it because it was driving me crazy!) Lastly, another place Kingsolver gets bonus points, is that she always ends on a positive note!

Posted by Lisa on January 25, 2002 05:30 PM