Flight Behavior

Sometimes there are good fiction authors I've overlooked.  My excuses include my belief that American fiction hit a decline several decades ago to be surpassed by history and biography. Historical fiction did keep pace though. The name Barbara Kingsolver was not unknown to me because many of my friends, blogging and otherwise, had mentioned her.  I knew she was popular with many female readers and not favored by the elitist critics. The same type who don’t like historians who become wildly popular. Hmmm.

I read  my first and her latest,  Flight Behavior.  Her writing is full of striking analogies, glowing adjectives and is very  evocative. Yes, the book centers around the misunderstandings of social class , culture and the facts and the ignorance surrounding  climate change.  In other words,  it would get a bad review on cable if anybody on Fix News read anything other than Ayn Rand (assuming they read anything at all)

Kingsolver has a background in science which she seamlessly combines with wonderful prose. There aren’t many who can do that.  The story revolves  around the struggles  of a young Appalachian woman on the brink of fleeing from a unfulfilling marriage and the flight of Monarch butterflies. displaced from their winter home in Mexico by climate change. The flights, both personal and ecologically based, bring readable science and intriguing characters to the forefront.  This is a book with a good heart. I loved it….