Prodigal Summer

Barbara Kingsolver

There is a sweetness to summer, a fullness and an emptiness that you'll not find in any other season. It is the time that goes after and the time that comes before. Summer signals much of those born of the spring into the slow march of death at Autumn's hand, for yet others, it gives opportunity to become strong and prepared for the door into winter. It can be whimsical, it can be harsh and more often than not, it can be a season to slow your thoughts and lull your body into a state of contentment. This is a season that falls between and is ripe in its own knowledge of necessity. Of all the seasons, summer is most strongly in its nature, the beginning to the end. Barbara Kingsolver's newest novel takes us deep into the summer months in the Appalachian mountains. As her novels will, this one too carries a message, a warning about the fragile threads which connect each and every one of us to every living plant and animal upon this earth. How there is no such thing as one animal or one plant being lost, as we all weave a dependency upon one another, when one fails, we all to some degree fail with it. The characters she creates to bring us this lesson are three women, all ripe in their own knowledge of being between. There is Nannie, 75 years old, who raises apples in her orchards and bans all use of pesticides, believing in the ability of Nature to take care of its own. There is Deanna, in her mid forties who has escaped the life of traffic and people and convenience for a life in the mountains, where she studies and hopes for the resurgence of coyotes. Then there is Lusa, transplanted from the city by marriage to a small tobacco farm and into the maddening circle of a family who neither understands or accepts her. Kingsolver takes us through a rich and sultry summer with these three women and like spice in a pie, she adds the element of love. For Nannie, there's her elderly neighbor of many years, with whom she shares a relationship mixed of curiosity, distrust and misunderstanding. For Deanna, there's Eddie Bono, a young man on a journey, their lives intersect in the beauty of the Appalachian Mountains and their passage is one of many crossed passions and beliefs. For Lusa, there is a small farm full of hope and compromise, a love for a man who leaves too soon, and the neverending strength of grief. Kingsolver brings you all these characters and elements in a package that continually opens itself. I found this novel packed full of life and loss, and everyday living, sometimes painful, just as often funny. The message in this book could not be lost on even the most indolent of readers. Nor should it be. I found this novel to be true to Kingsolver, it is rich, it is passionate, it floats on its own words. Pick it up and spend a summer there, you'll walk away with thoughts and messages which are new and hopeful. Be, for a time, her prodigal.