^ I ordered a copy of Prodigal Summer from an online used bookseller. When I eagerly ripped open the package to lay my eyes on the cover's lush bird's eye view of a forest, I met with a major disappointment. The dust jacket was missing.
^ Quickly, in an effort to soothe my hurt feelings, I flipped to the title page. Running my fingers across the thick textured paper, breathing in the calm of the simple type face across the forest of clean white, I tried to reassure myself that I didn't need those trees.
Then. A flash of color on the front end paper.
^ And with the turn of a single page, I was charmed.
Prodigal Summer | Barbara Kingsolver
Deanna grew up in small Appalachian town and now works as a forest ranger, living alone in a rundown log cabin on Zebulon Mountain. After a bad divorce, she's licking her forty-something year old wounds and determined to prove to herself and the world that she doesn't need a man. A rangy and guarded though highly educated loner, Deanna is constantly on the lookout for poachers and content to live among the birds, snakes, and mice. Then a strange man hikes into her territory, and changes everything.
Lusa comes to live at the foot of Zebulon Mountain as a newlywed. Her husband is a local boy who grew up in the very house where they are now making a home, surrounded by a passel of kinfolk who don't take kindly to his city girl bride. In the blink of an eye, Lusa finds herself responsible for learning how to run their little farm, and her PhD in entomology and passion for bugs - especially moths - appear to be irrelevant to the new challenge.
Garnet has lived a full and mostly happy life. But now he's lost his wife to cancer and, mysteriously, his son as well. He's spending his waning years trying to finally breed the perfect blight-resistant chestnut tree and provoking fights with his free-spirited neighbor. With his health failing rapidly, Garnet seems destined to live out his last few years as a mean-spirited grump unless someone can break through his crusty defenses and touch his heart.
Three separate characters inhabit their own chapters of the book, and keep to their own story lines that play out over the course of one reckless and lavish summer. Until the end of the book, of course, when Barbara Kingsolver deftly weaves the strands of their stories into one neat braid, and brings the events of this extravagant season to a satisfying close.
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This is a book about sex.
No, not like the Kama Sutra or Fifty Shades of Grey, though on the very first pages, two hikers exchange howdy dos on a forest trail by ripping off each other's clothes within mere moments of their first meeting, and then quickly sealing the deal on the front porch of her log cabin.
Which creates an inarguable first impression.
"Prodigal summer, the season of extravagant procreation. It could wear out everything in its path with its passionate excesses, but nothing alive with wings or a heart or a seed curled into itself in the ground could resist welcoming it back when it came."
But the truth is that Prodigal Summer is more birds and bees than blatant eroticism. Kingsolver's passion for and considerable expertise in the subject of biology is the driving force of this story, and she cleverly imbues her human characters with the mating behaviors of coyotes, moths, and chestnut trees.
Which sounds incredibly weird.
But Kingsolver is a master storyteller, and her scientific frame of reference works beautifully. Prodigal Summer is rich in metaphor and allegory, full of surprising twists and turns, and peopled with strong, engaging characters. Throw in some authentic Appalachia speak and a whole bunch of critters, and this is a story that will echo through my mind for many years to come.
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Hey! Wanna read more about the books I've read in 2022? Check these out:
The Vanishing Half
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For a full list of books I've read in the past few years, click here:
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