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A Novel
by Barbara Kingsolver
Book Reviewed by:A timely novel that interweaves past and present to explore the human capacity for resiliency and compassion in times of great upheaval.
Willa Knox has always prided herself on being the embodiment of responsibility for her family. Which is why it's so unnerving that she's arrived at middle age with nothing to show for her hard work and dedication but a stack of unpaid bills and an inherited brick home in Vineland, New Jersey, that is literally falling apart. The magazine where she worked has folded, and the college where her husband had tenure has closed. The dilapidated house is also home to her ailing and cantankerous Greek father-in-law and her two grown children: her stubborn, free-spirited daughter, Tig, and her dutiful debt-ridden, ivy educated son, Zeke, who has arrived with his unplanned baby in the wake of a life-shattering development.
In an act of desperation, Willa begins to investigate the history of her home, hoping that the local historical preservation society might take an interest and provide funding for its direly needed repairs. Through her research into Vineland's past and its creation as a Utopian community, she discovers a kindred spirit from the 1880s, Thatcher Greenwood.
A science teacher with a lifelong passion for honest investigation, Thatcher finds himself under siege in his community for telling the truth: his employer forbids him to speak of the exciting new theory recently published by Charles Darwin. Thatcher's friendships with a brilliant woman scientist and a renegade newspaper editor draw him into a vendetta with the town's most powerful men. At home, his new wife and status-conscious mother-in-law bristle at the risk of scandal, and dismiss his financial worries and the news that their elegant house is structurally unsound.
Brilliantly executed and compulsively readable, Unsheltered is the story of two families, in two centuries, who live at the corner of Sixth and Plum, as they navigate the challenges of surviving a world in the throes of major cultural shifts. In this mesmerizing story told in alternating chapters, Willa and Thatcher come to realize that though the future is uncertain, even unnerving, shelter can be found in the bonds of kindred—whether family or friends—and in the strength of the human spirit.
Kingsolver is nothing if not heavy-handed with her messages: Thatcher and Mary Treat are enlightened scientists who value all of life, as opposed to the selfish, superstitious masses; the American health insurance system is byzantine and socialism would solve it; owning your own home and looking after your own family are not the be-all and end-all. Although Donald Trump is never named, he's clearly the outrageous "Bullhorn" figure, likened to Captain Landis, the tyrannical creator/leader of Vineland in the 1870s. The danger is that readers who are ideologically opposed to Kingsolver may be annoyed by her overt taking of sides, while those who already agree with her could be impatient with what seem like statements of the obvious. I felt Willa's conversations with Tig, a model of the future-minded human, were particularly unrealistic idea dumps. All the same, Unsheltered is a rich, rewarding novel with so much going on that it feels like it encompasses all of human life...continued
Full Review
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(Reviewed by Rebecca Foster).
Mary Treat
Although the two protagonists of Barbara Kingsolver's Unsheltered are fictional, she includes historical figures in her 19th-century story line. Chief among these is Mary Treat, a rare female scientist who deserves to be better known than she is – I had no idea until I got to the Acknowledgments at the back of the book that Treat was a real person. Born Mary Davis in Trumansburg, New York in September 1830, she was the daughter of a Methodist minister. She grew up there and in Ohio and was educated by turns at a private girls' academy and a public school.
In 1863 she married Dr. Joseph Burrell Treat, a professor and abolitionist. After a time spent in Iowa, the couple moved to Vineland, New Jersey in 1869. It...
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