I have very high expectations each time I start a book by Barbara Kingsolver. Most of the time, she exceeds them.
Unsheltered (2018) is a good book, but not among her best. The premise/structure is pretty lovely: the novel alternates between a family in the middle of the 2010s that has found themselves–despite doing “all the right things”–struggling in the current economy in a small town in Pennsylvania and a family in the same town in the second half of the nineteenth century. The storylines are connected by dilapidated houses, familial relationships, and the final words of each chapter forming the title of the next.
As always, Kingsolver’s families, and especially her female characters, ring deeply and emotionally true. This is especially true for the contemporary storyline, where a formerly fully employed journalist is struggling to hold her family together, a unit that includes an obscene and infirm father-in-law; a husband who, failing in the pursuit of tenure, is reduced to the struggles of adjunct jobs in academia; a son whose partner commits suicide shortly after the birth of a grandchild; and a prodigal daughter.
Unsheltered is unapologetically political, focused on moments when an older way of looking at the world must give way to new knowledge, and the often-violent resistance to such upheaval, especially for those in power. In the earlier century, this is the rise of Darwinism; in the present time, it is the looming implications of climate change, set against the backdrop of a Trump candidacy.
There are some lovely moments in the book, and her exploration of a historically under-publicized female biologist is a nice addition to general knowledge.
#WhatIWishICouldDo
I mean … in some ways I wish I could be Barbara Kingsolver, right? But in terms of craft, her ability to evoke emotional connections between her characters in a way that also implicates the reader as a 3rd party remains stellar.