Unsheltered (by Barbara Kingsolver)

(Amazon UK link)

Many years ago I read Barbara Kingsolver’s best-known novel ‘The Poisonwood Bible’. Although the writing was good, quite compelling in places, I found it a bit long-winded, and so much disliked the main character that I haven’t picked up any of her other books. Until now. ‘Unsheltered’ was scheduled for this month’s reading group novel, so I put it on my wishlist, and was given it for my birthday a few months ago.

Although it’s a long novel - over 500 pages - I didn’t start reading it until Thursday. Happily, I found it quite engrossing, so much so that I finished it on Sunday evening, the day before the discussion group. And on the whole, I liked it very much.

It’s a dual timeline saga style novel, with alternating chapters set in the late 1800s and the 21st century, towards the end of the time when President Obama was in office. It’s set in a small town in the United States, called Vineland, which - in the 19th century - was an experimental utopian alcohol-free town owned by a businessman called Charles Landis.

The 19th century chapters of the book are based on real historic incidents, with some real people. Charles Landis and Vineland were real. The heroine of this part of the book is Mary Treat; she was a brilliant botanist although I had never heard of her. Her neighbour, a young man called Thatcher, is fictional. He is a science teacher, and finds himself regularly up against the town’s ultra-religious zealots, including his boss. Thatcher is married to the materialistic Rose, whom he doesn’t really understand at all. He’s closer intellectually to her twelve-year-old sister Polly, but finds a mind-mate in his neighbour Mary.

In the late 1800s Darwin had recently published his first work, exploring intra-species evolution based on observations. Mary Treat was one of his correspondents. Thatcher wants his young students to learn to study science methodically, observing, noting results, and - if relevant - questioning previous ideas. He doesn’t want to eliminate God or religion, but his boss treats the Bible as a science manual, and refuses to allow Thatcher even to take his class on field trips.

The contemporary part of the novel features a happily married couple who must be around fifty. Iano and Willa have lived the American dream, moving regularly to get better jobs for Iano, both working every hour to try and build a better life for their children. But now they face financial devastation, as the house where they’re living is falling down. Their son Zeke is laden with university debt, and experiences a terrible bereavement early in the book.

Their daughter Tig, by contrast, has always been something of a rebel. She has spent some years in Cuba but is now back in the family home, questioning everything. Tig is an environmentalist, passionate about recycling, concerned about global warming, and skilled in many ways which her mother is not. Willa doesn’t cook, or bake, and has never used cloth nappies.

The other person in their household is Iano’s elderly, frail and very ill father, who constantly has to be connected to oxygen. His lifestyle has turned him into a wreck, but he still smokes heavily, and is full of anger, mostly at immigrants, and socialists. Yet he and Tig, despite entirely different philosophies, have a pretty good relationship.

It’s a character-based book; each person matures a little and learns a great deal. Ultimately the stories are encouraging in different ways. The two families are living in the same location, both realising that their house is in bad repair and that fixing it will be way beyond their financial means. But as I gradually realised, the tumbling down houses are a metaphor for the crumbling of society - of the need to give up on previous beliefs, whether in 7-day creation in 4004 BC or in the ‘American dream’.

The writing is excellent, word pictures drawn beautifully with some low-key humour in places, although there’s rather too much bad language for my tastes. The factual and fictional parts of the story are woven so seamlessly together that I found myself checking, several times, whether or not a character or situation was historically accurate. The style is just right, and the pace, if a tad slow in places, never slows down too much, and weaves a believable, thought-provoking and challenging story.

Well worth reading, and very interesting to discuss.

Review copyright 2020 Sue's Book Reviews