Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver
"Prodigal Summer" by Barbara Kingsolver is a novel that intertwines the lives of three main pairs of characters against the backdrop of the Zebulon National Forest. Central to the narrative is Deanna Wolfe, a biologist-ranger who is deeply connected to the ecology of the forest, and her relationship with Eddie, a man whose impact on the environment she is concerned about. Lusa, an educated woman from Kentucky, struggles to find her place in her husband's rural farming community, where her background and beliefs create tension, particularly after a life-altering accident involving her husband, Cole. Additionally, Garnett Walker and Nannie Land Rawley engage in a debate over agricultural practices, highlighting the conflict between conventional farming methods and organic principles.
Kingsolver emphasizes ecological themes, suggesting that the characters' interpersonal conflicts mirror larger issues of environmental balance and the consequences of human actions on nature. The novel lacks a singular protagonist, encouraging readers to reflect on the broader implications of human interaction with the environment. Throughout the story, the characters navigate their relationships and explore themes of love, loss, and ecological interdependence, urging a respect for all living things and the delicate balance of their ecosystem. "Prodigal Summer" ultimately serves as a reminder of humanity's inextricable link to the natural world.
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Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition
First published: 2000
Type of work: Novel
The Work
Eddie Bondo and Deanna Wolfe share a love of nature, and they begin their interlude as lovers before he even knows her name. Deanna is a Forest Service employee serving as a resident biologist-ranger overseeing a section of the Zebulon National Forest. She has a deep knowledge of the people and ecology of Zebulon Valley and a stake in the wildlife balance, which she suspects that Eddie will threaten.
Then readers meet Lusa, Cole Widener’s “over-educated” wife whom he brought back to his family’s farm from Lexington, Kentucky. Lusa and Cole fight about her unwillingness to mix with local people, and Cole feels the sting of her idea that the world they inhabit is stultifying. Her Arabic background and her love of moths and insects set Lusa apart from the family. Cole defends his people and the ways of farmers, as well as his closed-minded family, when Lusa tries to tell him her problems. Cole’s accident while driving a grain truck for Southern States changes Lusa’s life forever and adds another point of conflict with the family, since she inherits the farm.
The third pair of antagonists, Garnett Walker and Nannie Land Rawley, tussles over whether to spray weeds along Highway 6. She is afraid that the toxins will drift onto her organic apples, and he wants the spraying done to protect his chestnut seedlings.
Kingsolver considers this her most difficult novel, as the issues being considered are more important in the book than the characters themselves. She has said that it has no main character and encourages readers to look beyond the tensions of the human interaction. Over the course of the novel, the five chief characters remaining after Cole’s death explore their sexuality in relationships, through memory, and by reputation. Their relationships prompt talk based on ideas like those found in T. R. Paine’s work on keystone predators. The effect of removing even one such predator from an environment is profound, upsetting the fragile ecological balance beyond repair. All the human tensions in the novel relate in some way to balance and the sensible use of the land, as well as respect for all living things. The novel reminds readers that their interdependence with nature is inescapable.
Bibliography
Beattie, Elisabeth L. “Story-Telling Traditions.” Keeneland Magazine, Winter, 2003, 41-44.
Blake, Fanny, and Margaret Forster. “YOU Reading Group: The Poisonwood Bible.” YOU 9 (January, 2000): 77-79.
Cockrell, Amanda. “Luna Moths, Coyotes, Sugar Skulls: The Fiction of Barbara Kingsolver.” The Hollins Critic 38, no. 2 (2001): 1-15.
Eisele, Kimi. “The Where and Why of Literature: A Conversation with Barbara Kingsolver.” You Are Here 2, no. 2 (1999): 10-15.
Flairty, Steve. “Barbara Kingsolver—Kentucky’s ’Polite Firebrand’ Author.” Kentucky Monthly, February, 2002, 12-15.