Unsheltered Isn't Up to Kingsolver's Best

Barbara Kingsolver is a wonderful writer, and her Poisonwood Bible is one of the best novels of the 20th century, in my opinion. I think I've read all the ones she's written since, and found them engaging although not up to the standard she set with PB.

Unsheltered--two stories, one set in 2015 when Trump is on the rise and another about 1870, that are interwoven-- is not either. Some of her zingers were marvelous, and certainly the novel was compulsive reading. There was too much didactic stuff in places, although I thought she did a great job in explaining natural selection when her 19th century character Thatcher Greenwood must defend Darwin in a debate on which his future as a teacher depends. But I doubt that few Creationists are going to read the book, so Kingsolver is preaching to the choir here.

The novel has a few loose ends that are annoying, like why didn't the other set of grandparents contribute something to a child's welfare, and how did social services approve the transfer of custody of the child from the father to the "unsheltered" grandparents when their living conditions were so terrible. (The photo, BTW, is of our house during a period when we felt it was falling down around us: I really sympathized with the characters' concern about the place they were living.)

On the other hand, the conflicts and travails of the characters were perhaps too neatly wrapped up at the novel's end: all but the villains have things to look forward to. I'd like to think the world was like that, but it isn't, and I'm pretty sure Kingsolver is as pessimistic as I am.