Unsheltered

July 15, 2018
Alternating between two centuries, Kingsolver (Flight Behavior, 2012, etc.) examines the personal and social shocks that ensue when people's assumptions about the world and their place in it are challenged.The magazine Willa Knox worked for went broke, and so did the college where her husband, Iano, had tenure, destroying the market value of their Virginia home, which stood on college land. They should be grateful to have inherited a house in Vineland, New Jersey, just a half-hour commute from Iano's new, non-tenured one-year gig, except it's falling apart, and they have been abruptly saddled with son Zeke's infant after his girlfriend commits suicide. In the same town during Ulysses Grant's presidency, science teacher Thatcher Greenwood is also grappling with a house he can't afford to repair as well as a headmaster hostile to his wish to discuss Darwin's theory of evolution with his students and a young wife interested only in social climbing. While Willa strives to understand how her comfortable middle-class life could have vanished overnight, her 26-year-old daughter, Tig, matter-of-factly sees both her mother's disbelief and her Greek-immigrant grandfather Nick's racist diatribes and hearty approval of presidential candidate Donald Trump as symptoms of a dying culture of entitlement and unbridled consumption. Lest this all sound schematic, Kingsolver has enfolded her political themes in two dramas of family conflict with full-bodied characters, including Mary Treat, a real-life 19th-century biologist enlisted here as the fictional friend and intellectual support of beleaguered Thatcher. Sexy, mildly feckless Iano and Thatcher's feisty sister-in-law, Polly, are particularly well-drawn subsidiary figures, and Willa's doubts and confusion make her the appealing center of the 21st-century story. The paired conclusions, although hardly cheerful, see hope in the indomitable human instinct for survival. Nonetheless, the words that haunt are Tig's judgment on blinkered America: "All the rules have changed and it's hard to watch people keep carrying on just the same, like it's business as usual."As always, Kingsolver gives readers plenty to think about. Her warm humanism coupled with an unabashed point of view make her a fine 21st-century exponent of the honorable tradition of politically engaged fiction.

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Starred review from July 16, 2018
Kingsolver's meticulously observed, elegantly structured novel unites social commentary with gripping storytelling. Its two intertwined narratives are set in Vineland, a real New Jersey town built as a utopian community in the 1860s. In the first storyline, set in the present, the magazine Willa Knox edited and the college at which her husband, Iano Tavoularis, taught both fold at the same time. They find themselves responsible for Iano's ailing father and their single son's new baby. They hope the house they have inherited in Vineland will help rebuild their finances, butâriddled with structural problems too costly to repairâit slowly collapses around them. Destitute after decades of striving and stunned by the racist presidential candidate upending America's ideals, the couple feels bewildered by the future facing them. Researching the home's past in the hopes of finding grant-worthy historical significance, Willa becomes fascinated by science teacher Thatcher Greenwood and his neighbor, naturalist Mary Treat, one of whom may have lived on the property in the 1870s. In the second story line, which alternates with Willa's, Thatcher's home is unsound and irreparable, too. His deepening bond with Mary inspires him, but his support for radical ideas like those of Mary's correspondent Charles Darwin infuriates Vineland's repressive leadership, threatening Thatcher's job and marriage. Kingsolver (Flight Behavior) artfully interweaves fictional and historical figures (notably the remarkable Mary Treat) and gives each narrative its own mood and voice without compromising their underlying unity. Containing both a rich story and a provocative depiction of times that shake the shelter of familiar beliefs, this novel shows Kingsolver at the top of her game.

August 1, 2018
Rather than looking to a dystopian near-future to address environmental concerns, as so many fiction writers have, Kingsolver (Flight Behavior?, 2012) knits them right into the familiar lives of her ensnaring characters. In this exceptionally involving and rewarding novel, Kingsolver considers how our ways of living are threatened by the changing climate and our ever-increasing pressure on the biosphere, conducting a subtle, many-stranded inquiry into the concept of shelter within two story lines in two time frames, both anchored in Vineland, New Jersey.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

Starred review from September 1, 2018

Multi-award-winning Kingsolver's eighth novel (after Flight Behavior) tells two stories in alternating chapters, both taking place on the same residential lot in Vineland, NJ, but roughly 150 years apart. In the 1870s, science teacher Thatcher struggles with meeting the expectations of his socially ambitious wife while running afoul of school and city morality for teaching Darwinism and develops a connection with his next-door neighbor, naturalist Mary Treat. In the present day, journalist Willa tries to hold her family together, four generations of which are living in a house that is literally falling down around them, as they struggle with medical bills, tragedy, and long-buried conflict. In the historical story (Thatcher and his family are fictional, but other characters and plot elements are based on real people and events), Kingsolver finds parallels to our current political climate without being heavy-handed, conveying the frustration and despair of members of the professional middle class, who "did all the right things" but feel they are losing ground. VERDICT Kingsolver fans will find everything they want and expect here: compelling characters, social awareness, and a connection to the natural world. [See Prepub Alert, 4/9/18.]--Christine DeZelar-Tiedman, Univ. of Minnesota Libs., Minneapolis

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2018

With the magazine where she worked and the college where her husband taught both shuttered, Willa Knox starts researching their tumbledown house's history, hoping to interest the local preservation society in some much-needed repairs. Then she discovers that a previous owner's battles parallel her own. With a 500,000-copy first printing and a ten-city tour.

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.