CBR11 Bingo: Science!
I am not a science-y person, but I am a pretty avid gardener. Having spent a lot of time playing in the dirt, coaxing plant life to flourish and googling to find out what bug is terrorizing my plants, I am a sucker for fiction that circles the natural sciences.
Barbara Kingsolver is the first author that I encountered that delves in that particular niche. A friend recommended her book “Prodigal Summer” to me several years ago and I was hooked. She is a master at telling compelling domestic stories blended with ecology; books where nature is another character.
The bulk of the novel takes place in a residential neighborhood in Vineland, New Jersey. Alternating between the 1870’s and the 2016 Presidential election, the story follows a year in the lives of neighbors living on the same corner in different centuries.
After the Civil War, Thatcher Greenwood, a recently married school teacher, moves into the crumbling home of his wife’s family. Tasked with teaching science at a girl’s school, he soon finds himself in conflict with his boss, a staunch creationist. With a widowed mother-in-law, new wife and young sister-in-law to support, Thatcher finds himself at odds with being a man of science while still placating his employer.
During the tumultuous campaign season of 2016, Willa Knox and her husband find themselves starting over again in their mid 50’s. His tenure was lost when the university he worked for closed it’s doors. Willa’s journalism job vanished with the collapse of the magazine she wrote for. In debt and already struggling to care for Willa’s aging father-in-law, they move into an inherited house with their recently resurfaced adult daughter, bereaved son, and newborn grandson. Initially thankful for the “free” home, they soon discover that it is structurally unsafe and find themselves shuffling their belongings from room to room as the building literally falls down around them.
It took me a bit to get into the rhythm of going back and forth between the two time periods that, at first glance, didn’t seem to have much in common aside from the location. Kingsolver deftly connects the two, however, through natural scientist, Mary Treat, a correspondent of Charles Darwin. A neighbor and friend to Thatcher, Treat provides source material for Willa who becomes fascinated with the scientist while researching to secure historical status and funds to save their home.
It’s very compelling story about the media, political persuasion, greed, and dwindling natural resources. What needs are basic? What can we do without? Is our quest for comfort really just institutional greed?
I enjoyed the book, but it was a little more obviously preachy and heavy handed than some of her other novels. At points, long passages of political discourse pulled me out of the narrative a bit, but maybe with everything that is going on today in our world and in our ecosystem that’s exactly what is needed.