The reader will also pick up modern parallels with the venal narcissist who was the “president” of Vineland in Thatcher’s time.Īs daughter Tig explains, this man is a type found all over the US and particularly in government. Without shelter, we feel ourselves likely to die”.ĭespite a disclaimer that no character in the book is based on a real person in the 21st century, it is blindingly clear the Bullhorn in Willa’s chapters is Trump, although Kingsolver wisely does try to starve him of gratuitous publicity. This threat of losing one’s protective shell is reiterated throughout the novel with the dust jacket reading “without shelter we stand in daylight. It would not be a Kingsolver book if there was not some tub-thumping but fortunately the characters are so well drawn that the reader is willing to listen to the expositions of their views.įor Thatcher in the late 1800s, the issues include Darwin’s theory of evolution and his battle to get ignorant townspeople to act on reason rather than emotion.įor Willa in 2016, the concerns are family dynamics amidst the loss of financial security, despite years of education and hard work.īoth Thatcher and Willa live in what may be the same crumbling house 150 years apart, cracking around their ears and giving literal resonance to the “unsheltered” of the title. Their stories are told in layers and chapters which alternate past with present. In the modern view of the same place it is now a Trump-governed land and Willa is the main protagonist – a woman who has been blown into a tumble-down home with her rag-tag family of husband, adult daughter, father-in-law and a motherless grandchild. In the process, Thatcher gets to meet both Treat and Landis, although only one – significantly – becomes a friend. She then creates the fictional character of science teacher Thatcher Greenwood who strives to bring a new curriculum to the Vineland school. Heading back to the late 1870s, she takes town founder and one-time mayor Charles Landis and renowned botanist Mary Treat, and embellishes on the known facts. Kingsolver has taken the bare bones of history and bent them into the present day setting of Vineland in New Jersey. The themes of caring for our environment and pushing back against the darker side of capitalism often emerge in her work and do so again in her magnificent work Unsheltered.
Thoughtful readers who care about the environment are likely to sit up when American novelist Barbara Kingsolver brings out a new book. Gillian McAinsh reviews Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver
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