Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver

“A blend of breathtaking artistry, encyclopedic knowledge of the natural world. . . and ardent commitment to the supremacy of nature.” — San Francisco Chronicle

In this beautiful novel, Barbara Kingsolver, New York Times bestselling author of Demon Copperhead and The Poisonwood Bible, weaves together three stories of human love within a larger tapestry of lives inhabiting the forested mountains and struggling small farms of southern Appalachia.

Over the course of one humid summer, as the urge to procreate overtakes the lush countryside, this novel's intriguing protagonists—a reclusive wildlife biologist, a young farmer's wife marooned far from home, and a pair of elderly, feuding neighbors—face disparate predicaments but find connections to one another and to the flora and fauna with whom they necessarily share a place. Their discoveries are embedded inside countless intimate lessons of biology, the realities of small farming, and the final, urgent truth that humans are only one piece of life on earth.

Great book about intertwining lives in Appalachia. I didn't love the first chapter but stuck with it. Barbara Kingsolver is just great at character development. A lot of characters in this book won me over with them and it's very satisfying how they all grow together. I'd recommend it if you're a fan of her writing in general or nature fiction.

Let's get this out of the way upfront: this book isn't going to be to everyone's taste, and that's okay. Prodigal Summer is three intertwining stories in one, with three primary characters. Chapters are told from each of their perspectives, more or less alternately; they all take place in the same area and sometimes affect each other, but interactions between stories are strictly on the fringes.

This is not a book with a complex narrative. It concerns rural Zebulon County, which according to Wikipedia doesn't actually exist – that's okay, it's a stand-in for rural farming counties all over – and families who live in it, and their relationships with nature and with each other. The three perspectives belong to Deanna, a wildlife-loving park steward; Lusa, a city girl who married into a farming family before the narrative opens; and Garnett, a cantankerous old man in an ongoing row with his neighbor. My favorite was Lusa, my least favorite Deanna; I'm sorry to say my interest in Deanna never did grow much. The others I enjoyed steadily.

It's so difficult to know where to begin describing Prodigal Summer. It's about families, writ small, and ecology, writ large. The stories are simple, but affecting. The prose is thoroughly Kingsolver, richly written; one earlier reviewer described it as “a book to feel,” and I think that's a perfect description. The cover art is perfectly suited: this is a novel about abundant, exuberant life.

Perfect timing to finish this book just when the chill of fall begins! I really loved 2/3 of these stories, but Deanna's fell short. This is almost always a problem with media that has multiple stories, but it's worth it to weave a larger picture of this small Appalachian community.