Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver
Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver is a novel that weaves together three stories of human love within a larger tapestry of lives inhabiting the forested mountains and struggling small farms of southern Appalachia.
At the heart of these intertwined narratives is a den of coyotes that have recently migrated into the region. Deanna Wolfe, a reclusive wildlife biologist, watches the forest from her outpost in an isolated mountain cabin, where she is caught off-guard by Eddie Bondo, a young hunter who comes to invade her most private spaces and confound her self-assured, solitary life.
On a farm several miles down the mountain, another web of lives unfolds as Lusa Maluf Landowski, a bookish city girl turned farmer’s wife, finds herself unexpectedly marooned in a strange place where she must declare or lose her attachment to the land.
And a few more miles down the road, a pair of elderly, feuding neighbors tend their respective farms and wrangle about God, pesticides, and the complexities of a world neither of them expected.
The main themes of Prodigal Summer are respect for and understanding nature and the final, urgent truth that humans are only one part of life on earth. Kingsolver also includes long discussions about whether humans are somehow separate from nature or an intrinsic part of it, as well as politically-tinged debates about the economics of farming, the dangers of pesticides, and the ethics of hunting.
What I Liked
I liked the setting, the forest, and the connection to land themes. Kingsolver is also just an outstanding writer. This was not a book that I normally would’ve continued reading – but it was just so engaging that I kept at it.
What I Did Not Like
The whole book gave off divorced-woman-of-a-certain-age-looking-for-new-found-freedom vibes. Now – that’s not a bad thing at all. In fact, I’m glad I read it. It gave me an interesting window into a genre that I normally would never read (I picked the book up after reading the amazing Poisonwood Bible). But – just to set expectations, it was that type of book.
