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Summary
Summary
From the acclaimed author of The Bean Trees, here are 12 wonderful stories rich in themes of family ties and life choices.
Summary
With the same wit and sensitivity that have come to characterize her highly praised and beloved novels Animal Dreams and The Bean Trees, Barbara Kingsolver gives us a rich and emotionally resonant collection of twelve stories. Spreading her memorable characters over landscapes ranging from northern-California to the hills of eastern Kentucky and the Caribbean island of St. Lucia, Kingsolver tells stories of hope, momentary joy, and powerful endurance. In every setting, Kingsolver's distinctive voice -- at times comic, but often heartrending -- rings true as she explores the twin themes of family ties and the life choices one must ultimately make alone. Homeland and Other Stories creates a world of love and possibility that readers will want to take as their own.
Author Notes
Barbara Kingsolver was born on April 8, 1955 in Annapolis, Maryland and grew up in Eastern Kentucky. As a child, Kingsolver used to beg her mother to tell her bedtime stories. She soon started to write stories and essays of her own, and at the age of nine, she began to keep a journal. After graduating with a degree in biology form De Pauw University in Indiana in 1977, Kingsolver pursued graduate studies in biology and ecology at the University of Arizona in Tucson. She earned her Master of Science degree in the early 1980s.
A position as a science writer for the University of Arizona soon led Kingsolver into feature writing for journals and newspapers. Her articles have appeared in a number of publications, including The Nation, The New York Times, and Smithsonian magazines. In 1985, she married a chemist, becoming pregnant the following year. During her pregnancy, Kingsolver suffered from insomnia. To ease her boredom when she couldn't sleep, she began writing fiction
Barbara Kingsolver's first fiction novel, The Bean Trees, published in 1988, is about a young woman who leaves rural Kentucky and finds herself living in urban Tucson. Since then, Kingsolver has written other novels, including Holding the Line, Homeland, and Pigs in Heaven. In 1995, after the publication of her essay collection High Tide in Tucson: Essays from Now or Never, Kingsolver was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from her alma mater, De Pauw University. Her latest works include The Lacuna and Flight Behavior.
Barbara's nonfiction book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle was written with her family. This is the true story of the family's adventures as they move to a farm in rural Virginia and vow to eat locally for one year. They grow their own vegetables, raise their own poultry and buy the rest of their food directly from farmers markets and other local sources.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Barbara Kingsolver was born on April 8, 1955 in Annapolis, Maryland and grew up in Eastern Kentucky. As a child, Kingsolver used to beg her mother to tell her bedtime stories. She soon started to write stories and essays of her own, and at the age of nine, she began to keep a journal. After graduating with a degree in biology form De Pauw University in Indiana in 1977, Kingsolver pursued graduate studies in biology and ecology at the University of Arizona in Tucson. She earned her Master of Science degree in the early 1980s.
A position as a science writer for the University of Arizona soon led Kingsolver into feature writing for journals and newspapers. Her articles have appeared in a number of publications, including The Nation, The New York Times, and Smithsonian magazines. In 1985, she married a chemist, becoming pregnant the following year. During her pregnancy, Kingsolver suffered from insomnia. To ease her boredom when she couldn't sleep, she began writing fiction
Barbara Kingsolver's first fiction novel, The Bean Trees, published in 1988, is about a young woman who leaves rural Kentucky and finds herself living in urban Tucson. Since then, Kingsolver has written other novels, including Holding the Line, Homeland, and Pigs in Heaven. In 1995, after the publication of her essay collection High Tide in Tucson: Essays from Now or Never, Kingsolver was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from her alma mater, De Pauw University. Her latest works include The Lacuna and Flight Behavior.
Barbara's nonfiction book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle was written with her family. This is the true story of the family's adventures as they move to a farm in rural Virginia and vow to eat locally for one year. They grow their own vegetables, raise their own poultry and buy the rest of their food directly from farmers markets and other local sources.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (8)
Publisher's Weekly Review
With this dazzling array of stories, demonstrating a wide range of characterizations, settings, situations and narrative voices, Kingsolver confirms the promise of her astonishingly accomplished first novel, The Bean Trees. Most of these dozen tales ring with authentic insights, leaving the reader moved, amused or enlightened. Kingsolver's knowledge of human nature, and especially domestic relationships, is breathtaking. She is able to convey the personalities and voices of such diverse characters as a feisty union organizer of Mexican ancestry; a young girl trying to be faithful to the legacy of her Cherokee grandmother; a life-scarred ex-con determined to go straight; an upper-middle-class wife and mother on a clandestine trip to the Petrified Forest with her lover; a middle-aged man whose cherished wife gives him an intimation of her mortality; a child from a poor farming family who befriends an outcast in her Kentucky community. Among the standout stories is ``Islands on the Moon,'' in which a single mother faces her pregnancy with added exasperation because her mother--also single--will be having a baby at the same time. Propelled by fresh, breezy dialogue, funny, tender and full of surprises, the story takes a poignant turn when the mother and daughter heal their estrangement on a portentous day. If the symbolism in a few of these tales is sometimes too obvious, Kingsolver handles every other narrative device with delicacy and subtle skill. First serial to Redbook and Mademoiselle. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
From the author of the well-received The Bean Trees (1987), 12 far-reaching and mostly affecting stories that seem wise in the ways of many places--from Kentucky to Arizona to the island of St. Lucia. Kingsolver's voice has remarkable range but seems truest when it's slightly offbeat, in stories full of legend, black magic, or just plain rumor. Great-Mam--an old Cherokee woman in the title story--hands over the whole weight of the world to her great-granddaughter Gloria, and the child understands that it's a burden she will cherish. In ""Jump-Up Day,"" Jericha, the daughter of an English doctor, meets a medicine man on the Caribbean island where rite's living and learns new lessons about healing. And Georgeann, in ""Rose-Johnny,"" risks disgrace to befriend a strange woman who's always been shunned by others in their rural community. A couple of the pieces here--""Blueprints,"" ""Bereaved Apartments""--seem to be striving for some level of meaning that they never quite reach. And the Kentucky stories that seek to juxtapose modern day life with old-time values would be wonderful if they didn't feel uncomfortably like clones of Bobbie Ann Mason's writing. But what's memorable here is the strength--and variety--of Kingsolver's own style. Vicki, the Hispanic union organizer in ""Why I am a Danger to the Public,"" comes to life as vividly and sympathetically as the Waspy, adulterous doctor's wife who narrates ""Stone Dreams."" Kingsolver's stories are so sharply defined and deftly constructed that their lackluster endings come as a disappointment--they don't support all the talent that the stories contain. No crescendos here, then, but, still, a lovely repertoire. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Family ties and the optimism that enables people to endure life's struggles are explored in this memorable collection of stories.
Library Journal Review
Kingsolver (Animal Dreams, Audio Reviews, LJ 1/95) offers a dozen tales of contemporary life that focus on relationships and the fragility of life and love. The central characters are all women or young girls who are struggling to understand themselves and those they love. In the title story, a child learns from her grandmother that home is not so much a place as it is a people and their history. In the concluding story, a tough-minded crane operator leads a wildcat strike and bears the consequences of her boldness with the sort of courage and determination that she hopes to instill in her children. All these tales of love, loss, and learning are told with insight and tenderness. There is a certain oral richness to these stories that renders them ideal for the audio format. Added to that dimension is the superb storytelling of narrator Paula Parker, who enriches Kingsolver's poetic prose with a variety of accents and voices. Highly recommended for all fiction collections.Sister M. Anna Falbo, CSSF, Villa Maria Coll. Lib., Buffalo(c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
With this dazzling array of stories, demonstrating a wide range of characterizations, settings, situations and narrative voices, Kingsolver confirms the promise of her astonishingly accomplished first novel, The Bean Trees. Most of these dozen tales ring with authentic insights, leaving the reader moved, amused or enlightened. Kingsolver's knowledge of human nature, and especially domestic relationships, is breathtaking. She is able to convey the personalities and voices of such diverse characters as a feisty union organizer of Mexican ancestry; a young girl trying to be faithful to the legacy of her Cherokee grandmother; a life-scarred ex-con determined to go straight; an upper-middle-class wife and mother on a clandestine trip to the Petrified Forest with her lover; a middle-aged man whose cherished wife gives him an intimation of her mortality; a child from a poor farming family who befriends an outcast in her Kentucky community. Among the standout stories is ``Islands on the Moon,'' in which a single mother faces her pregnancy with added exasperation because her mother--also single--will be having a baby at the same time. Propelled by fresh, breezy dialogue, funny, tender and full of surprises, the story takes a poignant turn when the mother and daughter heal their estrangement on a portentous day. If the symbolism in a few of these tales is sometimes too obvious, Kingsolver handles every other narrative device with delicacy and subtle skill. First serial to Redbook and Mademoiselle. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
From the author of the well-received The Bean Trees (1987), 12 far-reaching and mostly affecting stories that seem wise in the ways of many places--from Kentucky to Arizona to the island of St. Lucia. Kingsolver's voice has remarkable range but seems truest when it's slightly offbeat, in stories full of legend, black magic, or just plain rumor. Great-Mam--an old Cherokee woman in the title story--hands over the whole weight of the world to her great-granddaughter Gloria, and the child understands that it's a burden she will cherish. In ""Jump-Up Day,"" Jericha, the daughter of an English doctor, meets a medicine man on the Caribbean island where rite's living and learns new lessons about healing. And Georgeann, in ""Rose-Johnny,"" risks disgrace to befriend a strange woman who's always been shunned by others in their rural community. A couple of the pieces here--""Blueprints,"" ""Bereaved Apartments""--seem to be striving for some level of meaning that they never quite reach. And the Kentucky stories that seek to juxtapose modern day life with old-time values would be wonderful if they didn't feel uncomfortably like clones of Bobbie Ann Mason's writing. But what's memorable here is the strength--and variety--of Kingsolver's own style. Vicki, the Hispanic union organizer in ""Why I am a Danger to the Public,"" comes to life as vividly and sympathetically as the Waspy, adulterous doctor's wife who narrates ""Stone Dreams."" Kingsolver's stories are so sharply defined and deftly constructed that their lackluster endings come as a disappointment--they don't support all the talent that the stories contain. No crescendos here, then, but, still, a lovely repertoire. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Family ties and the optimism that enables people to endure life's struggles are explored in this memorable collection of stories.
Library Journal Review
Kingsolver (Animal Dreams, Audio Reviews, LJ 1/95) offers a dozen tales of contemporary life that focus on relationships and the fragility of life and love. The central characters are all women or young girls who are struggling to understand themselves and those they love. In the title story, a child learns from her grandmother that home is not so much a place as it is a people and their history. In the concluding story, a tough-minded crane operator leads a wildcat strike and bears the consequences of her boldness with the sort of courage and determination that she hopes to instill in her children. All these tales of love, loss, and learning are told with insight and tenderness. There is a certain oral richness to these stories that renders them ideal for the audio format. Added to that dimension is the superb storytelling of narrator Paula Parker, who enriches Kingsolver's poetic prose with a variety of accents and voices. Highly recommended for all fiction collections.Sister M. Anna Falbo, CSSF, Villa Maria Coll. Lib., Buffalo(c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
Homeland and Other Stories Chapter One Homeland My great-grandmother belonged to the Bird Clan, one of the fugitive bands of Cherokee who resisted the year that General Winfield Scott was in charge of prodding the forest people from their beds and removing them westward. Those few who escaped his notice moved like wildcat families through the Carolina mountains, leaving the ferns unbroken where they passed, eating wild grapes and chestnuts, drinking when they found streams. The ones who could not travel, the aged and the infirm and the very young, were hidden in deep cane thickets where they would remain undiscovered until they were bones. When the people's hearts could not bear any more, they laid their deerskin packs on the ground and settled again. General Scott had moved on to other endeavors by this time, and he allowed them to thrive or perish as they would. They built clay houses with thin, bent poles for spines, and in autumn they went down to the streams where the sycamore trees had let their year's work fall, the water steeped brown as leaf tea, and the people cleansed themselves of the sins of the scattered-bone time. They called their refugee years The Time When We Were Not, and they were forgiven, because they had carried the truth of themselves in a sheltered place inside the flesh, exactly the way a fruit that has gone soft still carries inside itself the clean, hard stone of its future... Homeland and Other Stories . Copyright © by Barbara Kingsolver. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold. Excerpted from Homeland and Other Stories by Barbara Kingsolver All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
Homeland and Other Stories Chapter One Homeland My great-grandmother belonged to the Bird Clan, one of the fugitive bands of Cherokee who resisted the year that General Winfield Scott was in charge of prodding the forest people from their beds and removing them westward. Those few who escaped his notice moved like wildcat families through the Carolina mountains, leaving the ferns unbroken where they passed, eating wild grapes and chestnuts, drinking when they found streams. The ones who could not travel, the aged and the infirm and the very young, were hidden in deep cane thickets where they would remain undiscovered until they were bones. When the people's hearts could not bear any more, they laid their deerskin packs on the ground and settled again. General Scott had moved on to other endeavors by this time, and he allowed them to thrive or perish as they would. They built clay houses with thin, bent poles for spines, and in autumn they went down to the streams where the sycamore trees had let their year's work fall, the water steeped brown as leaf tea, and the people cleansed themselves of the sins of the scattered-bone time. They called their refugee years The Time When We Were Not, and they were forgiven, because they had carried the truth of themselves in a sheltered place inside the flesh, exactly the way a fruit that has gone soft still carries inside itself the clean, hard stone of its future... Homeland and Other Stories . Copyright © by Barbara Kingsolver. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold. Excerpted from Homeland and Other Stories by Barbara Kingsolver All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
