Excerpt from Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"I'm saying I'm an adult, and my life experience is separate from yours."

He looked so tired. The sun through the window washed his face in an unmerciful light that rendered him old. Or worn, like old clothes. Not young enough to be her son.

A howl from the bassinet startled them both. The baby came to wakefulness with alarm, every time. Light, life, hunger, it all must feel like violation in the beginning. Willa let her son go to the baby. Opened a kitchen cabinet to start dinner or make a bottle or pack up dishes, she really had no idea. She watched Zeke pick up the tiny body with its dangling bowed legs and big saggy diaper. A new parent should be joyful. Not widowed, deserted, bankrupt, bereft of every comfort he carefully built for himself. For months to come, waking up would feel as violent for Zeke as for a newborn. Maybe for years.

"Shhhh, take it easy, buddy," he crooned as he laid his child on the changing table and nervously kept one palm on the baby's torso as the little limbs jerked and flailed. With his free hand Zeke pulled a diaper from the package, tucked it under his chin and unfolded it. Willa remembered in her gut how it felt to be the parent of a newborn: the excruciating love and terror of breakage.

"I'm lousy at this, buddy. You have to bear with me. I'm a rank beginner here."

"You're not lousy," Willa said quietly. "We're all beginners."

Excerpted from Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver. Copyright © 2018 by Barbara Kingsolver. Excerpted by permission of Harper. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.