PRODIGAL SUMMER

by Barbara Kingsolver

I have never read a book by Barbara Kingsolver that I didn’t love, and Prodigal Summer is no exception. Published in 2000, somehow, I hadn’t read this one and was keen to explore whether early Kingsolver novels were as gorgeous as her recent books.  Prodigal Summer has an almost ineffable aura about it that I hope I can adequately describe.

Set in Zebulon Valley, Kentucky, Prodigal Summer develops three separate, but equally captivating, love stories, distinct from each other but all firmly rooted in the natural world around them.  It is Kingsolver’s ability to establish her characters and their relationships to each other within the physical world which results in the book being such a primal and physically appealing book.  First, we meet Deanna, who works for the Forest Service and lives alone on the top of the mountain, where she is inextricably linked to the trees and animals around her.  She meets and is drawn to Eddie Bondo, a hunter with a very different type of love for nature.  Their physical attraction feels as primitive and inescapable as the cycles of the moon.

Then there are Lusa, a former college professor from the city, and her farmer, husband Cole who are newly married and settling into his family’s homestead in Zebulon Valley. Ten days into their marriage, Cole meets a tragic end and Lusa is left to determine how to fit into his extended family and how to honor her husband’s legacy and cultivate a viable farm. The third couple, Garnett Walker and Nannie Rawley, are neighbors and in their eighties and are politely antagonistic toward each other due to his allegiance to spraying his farm with chemicals and her devotion to raising organic plants and vegetables.  When they find common ground in their reverence for the mighty chestnut tree, their relationship changes from antagonism to admiration.

Kingsolver paints a cinematic story in Prodigal Summer, one filled with the natural world of mountains and valleys, animals and birds, weather and seasons.  Her descriptions are so vibrant and lifelike that you will feel like you are right there in the Kentucky mountains, living each of the characters’ lives along with them.  This is truly an astonishing masterpiece of writing. (Liz)