This novel takes place in the environs of Zebulon Mountain in the southern Appalachians. There's not much to see, really, just some picturesque scenery and federal parkland overlooking scattered farms and a small community whose inhabitants mostly speak in a dialect reflecting their traditional values and insularity. During one season we meet four lonely people: an alienated park ranger, a grieving young widow, an elderly botanist, and a seemingly ageless apple grower. Their stories are interesting, but this does not measure up to Kingsolver's other novels in my estimation.

BLURB

Barbara Kingsolver's fifth novel is a hymn to wildness that celebrates the prodigal spirit of human nature, and of nature itself. It weaves together three stories of human love within a larger tapestry of lives amid the mountains and farms of southern Appalachia. Over the course of one humid summer, this novel's intriguing protagonists face disparate predicaments but find connections to one another and to the flora and fauna with which they necessarily share a place.

REVIEW

the only one of her books i keep in the house. i really like this one.