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hedgehog

(36,286 posts)
8. I think I found it - fiction with a lot of non-fiction snuck in -
Thu Nov 8, 2012, 12:34 PM
Nov 2012

Flight Behavior - Barbara Kingsolver

n what may be the first novel to realistically imagine the near-term impact of “global weirding,” Barbara Kingsolver sets her latest story in rural Appalachia . In fictional Feathertown, Tennessee, Dellarobia Turnbow--on the run from her stifling life--charges up the mountain above her husband’s family farm and stumbles onto a “valley of fire” filled with millions of monarch butterflies. This vision is deemed miraculous by the town’s parishioners, then the international media. But when Ovid, a scientist who studies monarch behavior, sets up a lab on the Turnbow farm, he learns that the butterflies’ presence signals systemic disorder--and Dellarobia's in-laws’ logging plans won’t help. Readers who bristle at politics made personal may be turned off by the strength of Kingsolver’s convictions, but she never reduces her characters to mouthpieces, giving equal weight to climate science and human need, to forces both biological and biblical. Her concept of family encompasses all living beings, however ephemeral, and Flight Behavior gracefully, urgently contributes to the dialogue of survival on this swiftly tilting planet. --Mari Malcolm

http://www.amazon.com/Flight-Behavior-Novel-Barbara-Kingsolver/dp/0062124269

Recommendations

0 members have recommended this reply (displayed in chronological order):

Lionel Shriver's So Much for That MountainLaurel Jun 2012 #1
Deer Hunting with Jesus dixiegrrrrl Jun 2012 #2
Nickel and Dimed is a good one, as it's interesting LuckyLib Jun 2012 #3
hmmmmm fe6252fes Jun 2012 #4
Nickel and Dimed is hardly a stealth selection. SheilaT Jun 2012 #5
A book to give you something to talk about Mcubed1945 Jun 2012 #6
Confederates in the Attic freesqueeze Jul 2012 #7
I think I found it - fiction with a lot of non-fiction snuck in - hedgehog Nov 2012 #8
Awesome MountainLaurel Nov 2012 #9
Latest Discussions»Culture Forums»Non-Fiction»I need a stealth selectio...»Reply #8