Fiction Review: Unsheltered

I just finished reading Barbara Kingsolver's latest novel, Unsheltered, and my neighborhood book group discussed it this week. Kingsolver is one of my favorite authors (especially her earlier novels like The Poisonwood Bible, The Bean Trees, and Pigs in Heaven), so I've been looking forward to reading this recent one. Unsheltered features parallel stories set in the same house about 150 years apart; it's clever and compelling, and I enjoyed it very much.

Willa Knox and her husband, Iano, are juggling so many crises at once that they can barely keep up. Their two adult children have had to move back home, along with a newborn infant; Willa lost her job and Iano's job as a college professor barely covers their expenses; Iano's cranky and infirm father lives with them and needs medical care they can't afford; and the house they recently inherited from an aunt in Vineland, NJ, is literally falling down around them. Willa normally takes responsibility for everyone around her, but she is feeling like her life is spinning out of control right now, as she struggles to take care of both a baby and an elderly man (with a serious potty mouth).

In alternating chapters, 150 years earlier, on the same corner in Vineland, Thatcher Greenwood has recently moved in with his new (much younger) wife, Rose; her mother, Aurelia; and her 12-year-old sister, Polly. Their house is also falling down around them and needs a new roof and other unaffordable repairs, but Rose's father built the house, so the women around Thatcher refuse to even consider moving. Thatcher works for modest pay as a high school science teacher in Vineland, a Utopian community started by Charles Landis (a real-life town and man). Thatcher yearns to introduce his students - mostly the children of farmers and laborers - to the excitement of science, but his overbearing principal, a close friend of Mr. Landis, won't allow him to even mention Darwin's revolutionary new discoveries. Thatcher's only refuge is the friendship of his next-door neighbor, Mary Treat (another real-life historical figure), a rare female botanist who spends her time examining the local flora, earns a good living writing about her observations, and corresponds with Mr. Darwin directly.

That sounds like a lot packed into one novel - and it is - but Kingsolver introduces each family and time period gradually and so compellingly that the reader is soon immersed in their lives. I found both stories equally engrossing. Our book group had a wonderful, wide-ranging discussion that included topics like the clever ways that Kingsolver draws parallels between the two stories, the details of each family's challenges, her use of the words "shelter" and "unsheltered" in each chapter with various meanings, and her talent for writing sentences that stop you in your tracks. In this one, Willa muses about the differences between their early years as a couple and their later years with children:

" No rational guidelines existed for comparing youthful freedom with the heart-enlarging earthquake of family life."

As with most Kingsolver novels, she combines the personal with the global, and concepts related to the environment and politics are woven into the narrative. A few in my book group felt she was a bit heavy-handed and preachy at times. I felt that way about her last novel, Flight Behavior (though I still enjoyed it), but I thought this novel was more natural and thoughtful in its approach, ingeniously showing parallels between then and now that indicate that things really haven't changed as much as we might think and that the challenges facing our world today aren't all that new. Mostly, though, this warm, engaging, entertaining novel is about family and how compassion, connections, and creativity can see us through the most difficult times in our lives.

461 pages, HarperCollins
HarperAudio

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Listen to a sample of the audio book, read by the author from the start of the novel - though I read this one in print, I love listening to Kingsolver read her own novels. Just listening to this brief sample made me smile and want to read the book again!

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local! 
  

Or you can order Unsheltered from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.