Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver

Amy  

fiction

Deanna is a Wildlife Manager in a national forest in Kentucky living alone in the wilderness, observing and documenting the wildlife in the park, when a stranger crosses her path. Lusa is young, recently widowed, and left to manage her husband’s farm while dealing with his large family. Garnett is a crotchety, bitter, lonely old man living on the property his ancestors have lived on for generations. Prodigal Summer is about the people in their community over the course of a few months.

Although I was concerned that this novel would be so full of nature facts and descriptions that I wouldn’t like it, I wanted to read another novel by Barbara Kingsolver since I loved two other novels she’d written. I’m so glad I did! This novel had a lot of heart. Yes, I learned a lot more about nature than I cared to but the education was not heavy-handed in this regard. In fact, I wasn’t bored with the factual information provided in this novel. Rather, I found it to be an engaging revelation. And Kingsolver managed to make me appreciate nature more than I already do. This novel was entirely different than the other two Kingsolver novels I’ve read and I appreciated her versatility of subject matter and diversity of personalities. This time Kingsolver shined a light on the difficulties of farming as well as the casualties of hunting animals and deforestation. I’ll admit that the pacing was a little slower than I normally like but it was perfect for this story. I was never bored and never felt the need to speed up the narration.

Of course, the best part of the story was the people. They were all so vivid and knowable. I loved spending time getting to know them. Additionally, there was very smart commentary on the generational closed-mindedness and lack of actual diverse experience or worldly knowledge within small communities of the United States. Kingsolver quite astutely illustrated the audacity and ridiculous claims of some religions. Most of the characters in this town did not care to learn about or get to know people with different backgrounds and, therefore, they were mistrustful, self-important, and unable to think critically about the real world outside of their sheltered, limited existence. They thought of anyone who was different simply as “other” and problematic. They didn’t view progress of any kind as improvement and were satisfied to never venture far from home. And yet, at least one of those “other” people managed to build a community in their midst for herself and change some opinions.

The crafting of the story was terrific too. The reader was able to figure things out before the characters did and that was intentional by Kingsolver. As a result, there were no big reveals and the story just continued to flow. Just like nature. I also really appreciated some of the colloquialisms from Appalachia. I think I'm going to adopt the "all overs" into my lexicon instead of saying the "shivers" (or the "willies" as my husband says).

The author read the audiobook. What a wonderful narrator! I hadn’t realized Kingsolver was a southerner herself but it makes perfect sense since she writes about southerners. Her own natural southern accent was charming. And she did have some range of different voices and accents. But her voice acting was the best part. SO good! I love when authors narrate their own audiobooks but I feel she is one of the best I’ve heard! I might just have to find another audiobook by Kingsolver so I can listen to her some more! She even sang one time! I’m very impressed and giving her an A+! Brava! 

HOWEVER, I did not appreciate the production of this audiobook at all. First, the narration is at a low volume so I had to turn my phone volume all the way up to hear her which made all my other phone noises extremely loud and painful.  Additionally, this audiobook has birdsong at the beginning of each new chapter and it, too, is way too loud and piercing compared to the narration volume. This audiobook was created in the early 2000s and things have greatly improved technologically since then! I'd still recommend the audiobook but you've been warned.

Some quotes I liked:

“There’s people I love. But there’s so many other kinds of life I love, too, and people act so hateful to every kind but their own.”

“I’ve always found people love you best if you can laugh at your own foolish misfortunes and keep mum about everyone else’s.”