Homeland and Other Stories

June 1, 1989
With this dazzling array of stories, demonstrating a wide range of characterizations, settings, situations and narrative voices, Kingsolver confirms the promise of her astonishingly accomplished first novel, The Bean Trees. Most of these dozen tales ring with authentic insights, leaving the reader moved, amused or enlightened. Kingsolver's knowledge of human nature, and especially domestic relationships, is breathtaking. She is able to convey the personalities and voices of such diverse characters as a feisty union organizer of Mexican ancestry; a young girl trying to be faithful to the legacy of her Cherokee grandmother; a life-scarred ex-con determined to go straight; an upper-middle-class wife and mother on a clandestine trip to the Petrified Forest with her lover; a middle-aged man whose cherished wife gives him an intimation of her mortality; a child from a poor farming family who befriends an outcast in her Kentucky community. Among the standout stories is ``Islands on the Moon,'' in which a single mother faces her pregnancy with added exasperation because her mother--also single--will be having a baby at the same time. Propelled by fresh, breezy dialogue, funny, tender and full of surprises, the story takes a poignant turn when the mother and daughter heal their estrangement on a portentous day. If the symbolism in a few of these tales is sometimes too obvious, Kingsolver handles every other narrative device with delicacy and subtle skill. First serial to Redbook and Mademoiselle.

May 27, 1990
``With this dazzling array of stories, demonstrating a wide range of characterizations, settings, situations and voices, Kingsolver confirms the promise of her astonishingly accomplished first novel, The Bean Trees ,'' praised PW . ``If the symbolism in a few tales is too obvious, the author handles other narrative devices with delicacy and subtle skill.''

These twelve stories dramatize the everyday lives of assorted characters from all over the U.S. All are living on the edge of poverty; they're down but definitely not out. In one story, an unhappy daughter living in a trailer must face her alienated mother after they are thrown together in a freak accident. In another, a young girl defends an older woman against bigots in a Southern town. All the characters, struggling for decent lives, command our respect. In telling about them, the author has wisely left her readers free to interpret the stories as they wish. But this technique may be more successful in print than it is on tape. On tape the narrator, for better or worse, conditions the response. C.J. Critt, for instance, has been consistently accurate in her interpretation of the Kingsolver novels for Recorded Books. But Paula Parker, narrating this collection, fails to grasp the understated power of Kingsolver's prose. Except for one story, in which she captures beautifully the voice of a feisty Mexican-American woman, her reading is too histrionic for literary fiction. J.C. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine