Flight Behavior

Like most great fiction, this novel is about a lot of things. On the surface it's about the environment and the damage that climate change is doing to it. But it's also about the importance of educating ourselves–about the environment, science in general, and just about everything. Plus, it's about communities and their interaction, such as the outsiders coming to Appalachia with certain preconceived notions, as well as the notions of the local people about those outsiders. Again, education is in order on both sides of that divide.

At one point, Ovid Byron, the scientist who is studying the monarch butterflies who have suddenly settled onto a mountain in East Tennessee, says: “Ecology, [my field,] is the study of biological communities. How populations interact.” He's talking about butterflies. Kingsolver is talking about more than that.