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Summary
Summary
From the acclaimed author of The Bean Trees and Homeland, comes a powerful story of love and courage in an exotc southwestern landscape. Blending flashbacks, dreams, and Native American myths, thisis a suspenseful love story and a moving exploration of life's greatest commitments.
Author Notes
Barbara Kingsolver was born on April 8, 1955 in Annapolis, Maryland and grew up in Eastern Kentucky. As a child, Kingsolver used to beg her mother to tell her bedtime stories. She soon started to write stories and essays of her own, and at the age of nine, she began to keep a journal. After graduating with a degree in biology form De Pauw University in Indiana in 1977, Kingsolver pursued graduate studies in biology and ecology at the University of Arizona in Tucson. She earned her Master of Science degree in the early 1980s.
A position as a science writer for the University of Arizona soon led Kingsolver into feature writing for journals and newspapers. Her articles have appeared in a number of publications, including The Nation, The New York Times, and Smithsonian magazines. In 1985, she married a chemist, becoming pregnant the following year. During her pregnancy, Kingsolver suffered from insomnia. To ease her boredom when she couldn't sleep, she began writing fiction
Barbara Kingsolver's first fiction novel, The Bean Trees, published in 1988, is about a young woman who leaves rural Kentucky and finds herself living in urban Tucson. Since then, Kingsolver has written other novels, including Holding the Line, Homeland, and Pigs in Heaven. In 1995, after the publication of her essay collection High Tide in Tucson: Essays from Now or Never, Kingsolver was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from her alma mater, De Pauw University. Her latest works include The Lacuna and Flight Behavior.
Barbara's nonfiction book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle was written with her family. This is the true story of the family's adventures as they move to a farm in rural Virginia and vow to eat locally for one year. They grow their own vegetables, raise their own poultry and buy the rest of their food directly from farmers markets and other local sources.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Codi Noline, her self-confidence flagging after failures in med school and in a relationship, returns home to Grace, Ariz., where she renews a romance, comes to understand her father and worries about her sister, Hallie, who is helping farmers in Nicaragua. PW called this a ``well-nigh perfect novel, masterfully written, brimming with insight, humor and compassion.'' $40,000 ad/promo. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Kingsolver (The Bean Trees, 1987; Homeland, 1989; Holding the Line, 1989) now offers a complex but overly calculated novel--unsubtle messages set against spectacular southwestern scenery. Codi Noline takes a job teaching high school in her hometown of Grace, Arizona, partly in order to keep an eye on her doctor father, ailing With Alzheimer's disease, but mostly because--unlike her idolized sister Hallie, who's off in Nicaragua improving Sandinista agriculture until her kidnapping and murder by the contras--Codi has no direction to her life. She always felt like an outsider in Grace, a folkways-rich century-old Spanish-American town where almost everyone is related. She was three when her mother died; later, pregnant after a brief high-school affair with handsome Apache Loyd Peregrina, she lost the stillborn baby. As an adult, Codi is reluctant to form attachments. But once back in town, she nervously resumes her relationship with Loyd (who never knew about the pregnancy). Along the way, Codi--who whines that Hallie is the idealist, that she herself stands for nothing--lectures him about cruelty to animals (he gives up cockfighting); risks dismissal by the school board by teaching about environmentalism and birth control (she's named Teacher of the Year); and helps the Stitch and Bitch ladies' sewing-club stop the mining company from poisoning the river and the orchards. Kingsolver has political conviction, a wonderful eye for the surface of things and many charming poetic conceits, but here her characters seem constructed rather than real. A promising miss. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
In this skillfully told novel by the author of The Bean Trees [BKL Mr 1 88], a young woman returns to her hometown to care for her father and, without knowing it, herself. As usual, Codi is seeking to avoid life, but instead she finds plenty of it. She begins a complicated romance with a former boyfriend, corresponds with her sister, Hallie, who is kidnapped and then murdered in Nicaragua, tries to convince her father that his declining mental abilities are interfering with his work as a physician, and attempts to save the town from the evil Black Mountain Mining Company, which is poisoning the river and threatening the region's future. In alternating chapters, Kingsolver gives us Codi and her father, Homer, adroitly melding two viewpoints of one history. The book's southwestern setting proves particularly evocative: lush hot springs, dramatic vistas, and ancient pueblos are ideal envelopes for characters in deep introspection or loving embrace. The mixed Anglo and native American culture is equally colorful and unusually well developed. It's hard to find fault with this book--it manages to push all our emotional buttons without sacrificing fine craftsmanship. --Deb Robertson
Library Journal Review
Codi Noline returns to the sleepy mining town of Grace, Arizona, to care for her father, who is suffering from Alzheimer's disease. It is a bad time for her: disappointed in her personal life, she has closed down her emotions in defense against a heart that cares too easily. ``I had quietly begun to hope for nothing at all in the way of love, so as not to be disappointed,'' she muses. In Grace, she finds friends, allies, and a love that endures. This strong second novel confirms the promise shown in The Bean Trees (LJ 2/1/88), a deserved critical and commercial success. Kingsolver's characters are winners, especially the women, who take charge of life without fuss or complaint. Her novel compares to those of Ann Tyler in its engaging people and message that is upbeat but realistic. Kingsolver's dedication to complex social and environmental causes enriches the story line. Highly recommended. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 4/15/90.-- David Keymer, SUNY Inst. of Technology, Utica (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.