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Barbara Kingsolver’s fifth novel honors mother nature as well as the prodigal spirit of human nature. By entwining three stories of evolving relationships within a larger tapestry of life in the Appalachian mountains of Kentucky, Kingsolver reminds us that people, their decisions, and their actions, are simultaneously significant and inconsequential when up against the wilderness.

Over the course of a summer, Deanna Wolfe, a wildlife biologist, divorced and determined to be alone, lives deep in the Appalachain mountains observing and protecting the wildlife.  Things are going according to her plan until she meets Eddie Bondo, a hunter from Wyoming to whom she is undeniably attracted.  Eddie, however, has come to the mountains in order to destroy what she protects–the coyote.

In the valley below Deanna’s hightop mountain cabin is a newly wedded woman named Lusa who married Cole Widener and moved to the Widener farm.  Adjusting to country life in a big, farm family seemed hard until Cole dies one morning in a tractor accident.  Lusa is unaware of the rippling effects of each decision she makes from that point forward.

The third story is the most entertaining and lively of the three segments in this novel.  Two aging neighbors are too old to know how people their age are supposed to behave. Garnett Walker and Nannie Rawley go round and round disputing and defending their knowledge on biology, farming, wildlife and whatever else they can think of.  But from the very beginning, we feel the friction and sense a slight attraction, although it sometimes is hard to tell for sure.  Nannie is wildly entertaining and Mr. Walker is sure to remind you of an old man you know. Their arguments are informative, insightful and at times, in their back and forth, they seem to say more in one sentence than some people manage to ponder their whole life through.

Eventually, in perfect pace, Kingsolver reveals the connections between these people and the soft words surprise us with a mysterious after-weight.

Quote from
Prodigal Summer

“Every quiet  step is thunder to beetle life underfoot, a tug of impalpable thread on the web pulling mate to mate and predator to prey, a beginning or an end.  Every choice is a world made new for the chosen.”

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