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Prodigal Summer: Summary and book reviews of Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver, plus links to an excerpt from Prodigal Summer and a biography of Barbara Kingsolver.

Prodigal Summer

Prodigal Summer
by Barbara Kingsolver
Hardcover: Oct 2000,
464 pages.
Paperback: Oct 2001,
434 pages.

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Reading Guide
Reader Reviews

Author Biography
Books by this Author
Critics' Opinion:   very good
Readers' Rating:  4.5 Stars
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BOOK SUMMARY



Barbara Kingsolver, a writer praised for her "extravagantly gifted narrative voice" (New York Times Book Review), has created with this novel a hymn to wildness that celebrates the prodigal spirit of human nature, and of nature itself.

Prodigal Summer weaves together three stories of human love within a larger tapestry of lives inhabiting the forested mountains and struggling small farms of southern Appalachia. At the heart of these intertwined narratives is a den of coyotes that have recently migrated into the region. Deanna Wolfe, a reclusive wildlife biologist, watches the forest from her outpost in an isolated mountain cabin where she is caught off-guard by Eddie Bondo, a young hunter who comes to invade her most private spaces and confound her self-assured, solitary life. On a farm several miles down the mountain, another web of lives unfolds as Lusa Maluf Landowski, a bookish city girl turned farmer's wife, finds herself unexpectedly marooned in a strange place where she must declare or lose her attachment to the land. And a few more miles down the road, a pair of elderly, feuding neighbors tend their respective farms and wrangle about God, pesticides, and the complexities of a world neither of them expected.

Over the course of one humid summer, as the urge to procreate overtakes a green and profligate countryside, these characters find connections to one another and to the flora and fauna with which they necessarily share a place. Their discoveries are embedded inside countless intimate lessons of biology, the realities of small farming, and the final, urgent truth that humans are only one part of life on earth.

With the richness that characterizes Barbara Kingsolver's finest work, Prodigal Summer embraces pure thematic originality and demonstrates a balance of narrative and ideas that only an accomplished novelist could render so beautifully.

BOOK REVIEWS

Media Reviews

Good  US Magazine
Kingsolver deftly addresses the struggle between mankind and nature ... A lush ... novel of love and loss in Appalachia.

Good  Newsweek
A warm, intricately constructed book shot through with an extraordinary amount of insight and information about the wonders of the invisible world.

Good  Wall Street Journal
Ms. Kingsolver's writing is generously well-grafted; choice moments ... radiate from nearly every page.

Good  Glamour Magazine
Compelling ... Lives that are less simple, and far more passionate, than they appear.

Good  Christian Science Monitor
Prodigal Summer is full of ... tenderness, humour and earthy spirituality ... Kingsolver's dialogue is absolutely natural, often funny, and sometimes heartbreaking.

Good  Creative Loafing
... a story of the many ways to define family -- human or not ... full of joy, warmth, and sweet surprise.

Very Good  San Francisco Chronicle
A blend of breathtaking artistry, encyclopedic knowledge of the natural world ... and ardent commitment to the supremacy of nature.

Very Good  New York Times Book Review
[An] extravagantly gifted narrative voice.

Very Good  Time
Kingsolver is a gifted magician of words.

Very Good  Orlando Sentinel
A triumphant return to the southern Appalachians of her own childhood.

Very Good  People Magazine
[Kingslover's] sexy, lyrical fifth novel renders our solitary yearnings with a finely trained eye and ear.

Very Good  Buffalo News
As lush, rich and abundant as nature itself ... Prodigal Summer is quietly breathtaking, and its vista awe-inspiring.

Recent Reader Reviews

Rated 4 of 5 of 5 by Sue Mayor
Novel or biology textbook?
Overall I enjoyed 'The Prodigal Summer' as a novel with interesting and well-defined characters.

However since the author is a skilled novelist she should stick to wring novels and not spend so much time trying to impress readers with her...   Read More

Rated 2 of 5 of 5 by celeste
it is a very good, but it moves too slowly for my taste.

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