Book Reviews
A romantic interlude in Barbara Kingsolver's vibrant new novel involves two mating humans plus a moth laying eggs, a hunting phoebe and a couple of mice. Pillow talk, in a cosily secluded mountain cabin where ''there was no better dawn chorus anywhere on earth,'' concerns the fates of the American chestnut, the lynx and the coyote, culminating in a lovers' quarrel about the importance of predators in the food chain. In an improbably appealing book with the feeling of a nice stay inside a terrarium, Ms. Kingsolver means to illustrate the nature of biological destiny and provide enlightened discourse on various ecological matters.
Janet Maslin - New York Times
Readers hoping for the emotional intensity and wide-angle vision of The Poisonwood Bible...will most likely be disappointed. But the legions of fans primed on earlier books like Animal Dreams and The Bean Trees will find themselves back on familiar, well-cleared ground of plucky heroines, liberal politics and vivid descriptions of the natural world.... Once again Kingsolver is thinking globally but writing locally.... But in Prodigal Summer, the characters have all the answers, and you can hardly read a chapter of Kingsolver's lush prose without tripping on a potted lecture by a woman bent on setting a man straight.
Jennifer Schuessler - New York Times Book Review
As lush, rich and abundant as nature itself.... Prodigal Summer is quietly breathtaking, and its vista awe-inspiring.
Buffalo News
A blend of breathtaking artistry, encyclopedic knowledge of the natural world...and ardent commitment to the supremacy of nature.
San Francisco Chronicle
A beguiling departure for Kingsolver, who generally tackles social themes with trenchantly serious messages, this sentimental but honest novel exhibits a talent for fiction lighter in mood and tone than The Poisonwood Bible and her previous works. There is also a new emphasis on the natural world, described in sensuous language and precise detail. But Kingsolver continues to take on timely issues, here focusing on the ecological damage caused by herbicides, ethical questions about raising tobacco, and the endangered condition of subsistence farming. A corner of southern Appalachia serves as the setting for the stories of three intertwined lives, and alternating chapters with recurring names signal which of the three protagonists is taking center stage. Each character suffers because his or her way of looking at the world seems incompatible with that of loved ones. In the chapters called "Predator," forest ranger Deanna Wolfe is a 40-plus wildlife biologist and staunch defender of coyotes, which have recently extended their range into Appalachia. Wyoming rancher Eddie Bondo also invades her territory, on a bounty hunt to kill the same nest of coyotes that Deanna is protecting. Their passionate but seemingly ill-fated affair takes place in summertime and mirrors "the eroticism of fecund woods" and "the season of extravagant procreation." Meanwhile, in the chapters called "Moth Love," newly married entomologist Lusa Maluf Landowski is left a widow on her husband's farm with five envious sisters-in-law, crushing debts—and a desperate and brilliant idea. Crusty old farmer Garnett Walker ("Old Chestnuts") learns to respect his archenemy, who crusades for organic farming and opposes Garnett's use of pesticides. If Kingsolver is sometimes too blatant in creating diametrically opposed characters and paradoxical inconsistencies, readers will be seduced by her effortless prose, her subtle use of Appalachian patois. They'll also respond to the sympathy with which she reflects the difficult lives of people struggling on the hard edge of poverty while tied intimately to the natural world and engaged an elemental search for dignity and human connection.
Publishers Weekly
This novel covers the expanse of one summer in the lives of several people in a remote area of southern Appalachia. The central theme tying three separate story lines together is the importance, and fragility, of the biological ecosystems found in the natural world. This precarious balance between humans and everything else—plants, bugs, moths, and mammals—is examined, tested, rejected, and rejoiced in by a collage of characters, who include Deanna Wolfe, the park ranger who tries to protect a pack of coyotes that miraculously appear on Zebulon Mountain; Lusa Landowski, a city girl with a degree in entomology who raises and sells goat kids; and feuding neighbors Garnett Walker and Nannie Rawley. To follow The Poisonwood Bible would be a daunting task for any writer; for Kingsolver, it would seem to be just about spinning another marvelous, magical yarn, only in a different locale and filled with another batch of endearing, honest people. This time her message is about the environment and intelligent women who are more comfortable with a love of nature than love with a man. Kingsolver reads her own words as lyrically as she writes them. Very highly recommended for all public and academic libraries with audio literature collections. —Gloria Maxwell, Penn Valley Community Coll., Kansas City, MO.
Library Journal
A complex web of human and natural struggle and interdependency is analyzed with an invigorating mixture of intelligence and warmth. In a vividly detailed Appalachian setting, several seemingly incompatible lives come into initially troubling proximity during one event-filled summer. Wildlife biologist Deanna Wolfe has returned to her home territory to work at "trail maintenance" on lushly forested Zebulon Mountain, where a sighting of coyotes (not native to the area) excites her interest in "the return of a significant canid predator and the reordering of species it might bring about." Deanna's stewardship of this wilderness is compromised by her affair with "seasonal migrant" Eddie Bondo, whose pragmatic hunter's code challenges her determination to preserve nature red in tooth and claw. Their relationship, explored in chapters (ironically) entitled "Predators," is juxtaposed with the stories ("Moth Love") of former "bug scientist" and committed environmentalist Lusa Landowski, a widowed farm woman at odds with her late husband's judgmental (tobacco-growing) family, and feuding next-door neighbors Garnett Walker and Nannie Rawley ("Old Chestnuts"), whose contention arises when the herbicides employed to save his chestnut trees endanger her apple orchard. All of the aforementioned are interesting, complicated, ornery creatures themselves, and Kingsolver (The Poisonwood Bible, 1998, etc.) has the good sense to present them in extended conversations (and arguments). The dialogue virtually leaps off the page as the various parties learn a great deal about one another—and themselves. The trap this ambitious story has laid for itself—an over abundance of discussion of ecological issues—is to a great extent avoided because its people's causes are shown to have developed credibly from their personal histories and present circumstances. Kingsolver doesn't hesitate to lecture us, but her lessons are couched in a context of felt life so thick with recognition and implication that we willingly absorb them. This deservedly popular writer takes risks that most of her contemporaries wouldn't touch with the proverbial ten-foot pole. Prodigal Summer is another triumphant vindication of her very distinctive art.
Kirkus Reviews