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

It never mattered before. Having a mother to shore up Willa had always left Iano free to be the fun, sexy one who didn't worry even about death or taxes, who brought her flowers picked from other peoples' yards, who once threw her pain-inflicting shoes out the car window on the way to a formal reception at the Provost's. She couldn't expect him to be a new kind of person now. She was the crisis handler, he was the evader. Marriages tended to harden like arteries, and she and Iano were more than thirty years into this one. This evening he would come in the door like a blast of warm weather, give her a kiss in the kitchen before changing out of his office clothes, and they'd have no chance to talk before dinner.

So she would drop this bomb on everybody at once. They were all adults, entitled to share her concern about a house falling down on them. Old Nick with his oxygen tank and rabid contempt for the welfare state would be especially vulnerable to the challenges of homelessness. On the other hand, Tig might light a bonfire and dance in the yard as the bricks rained down. Willa had tried and failed to track her daughter's moral path, but collapse of some permanent structure always seemed to be part of the territory.



Willa's evening forecast evaporated as she was putting the spaghetti on to boil. Iano had kissed her and disappeared into the bedroom, as predicted. But now he walked back into the kitchen looking stricken, carrying her phone. Answering her calls and texts was a habit she'd like him to break, but not just now. He held the thing as if it were scorching him.

She recoiled. "What? Is it Zeke?"

He nodded, unreadably.

"Is he hurt? God, Iano. What?"

Iano set the phone on the counter and Willa picked it up, shaking. "Hello?"

"Mom, it's me."

"Oh Jesus, Zeke, you're okay. Is the baby okay?"

Zeke was sobbing. Choked. A level of desperation she couldn't associate with her levelheaded son. She waited without realizing she was holding her breath.

"The baby's fine," he said finally. "It's Helene."

"Oh no. Some problem from the C section? It happens, honey. Did she have to go back to the hospital?"

Iano was looking at her with mournful eyes, shaking his head. His face behind the dark, trimmed beard looked scarily pale, and his foreknowledge was disorienting. She turned her back on him and listened to her son's silence, the gathering of his will.

"Mom, Helene's dead. She died."

"Jesus! How?"

The beat of his silence lasted long enough for Willa to wonder if she'd been rude to ask. Her mind battered itself like a trapped bird.

"She took pills," he finally said. "She killed herself."

"You had pills around? With a baby in the house?"

"He's not up to child-proof caps, Mom."

The scolding sobered Willa, put them on solid ground. "Have you called 911?"

"Of course."

"I'm sorry, I'm just… I'm in shock. When did this happen?"

"What time is it now? I got home around a quarter to six. She's still here."

"Who is?"

"Mom, Helene. She died in the bedroom. There's a thing in her mouth. Ventilator. They tried to revive her even though it was hopeless I guess. They said they have to leave that thing in her until the coroner's report. It's kind of freaking me out, it pulls her face all out of shape and looks so painful. I guess that's a stupid thing to worry about."

"So the EMTs came. Are they still there? What happens now?"

"They left. They had another call that was, you know. Urgent. Now the coroner comes and then the mortuary, to take the body. The EMT gave me numbers to call."

"Oh, honey. Are you alone there in the apartment?"

"I'm with Aldus."

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.