Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver

Prodigal Summer

by Barbara Kingsolver

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION
TWICE WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION
THE MULTI-MILLION COPY BESTSELLING AUTHOR

'A rich and compulsive read' Guardian


From the award-winning and internationally bestselling author of Demon Copperhead, The Lacuna and The Poisonwood Bible.

It is summer in the Appalachian mountains and love, desire and attraction are in the air. Nature, too, it seems, is not immune. From her outpost in an isolated mountain cabin, Deanna Wolfe, a reclusive wildlife biologist, watches a den of coyotes that have recently migrated into the region. She is caught off guard by a young hunter who invades her most private spaces and interrupts her self-assured, solitary life. On a farm several miles down the mountain, Lusa Maluf Landowski, a bookish city girl turned farmer's wife, finds herself marooned in a strange place where she must declare or lose her attachment to the land that has become her own. And a few more miles down the road, a pair of elderly feuding neighbours tend their respective farms and wrangle about God, pesticides, and the possibilities of a future neither of them expected. Over the course of one humid summer, these characters find their connections of love to one another and to the surrounding nature with which they share a place.

With its strong balance of narrative and drama, Prodigal Summer is stands alongside Demon Copperhead, The Poisonwood Bible and The Lacuna as one of Barbara Kingsolver's finest works.

Reviewed by jamiereadthis on

5 of 5 stars

Share
This was the right book to read while I was alone for a week in the Blue Ridge mountains. I soaked it in the way I soaked in the landscape at twilight. It was October, not summer, but this book couldn’t have arrived in my life at a more perfect time.

Last modified on

Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • Finished reading
  • 26 November, 2018: Reviewed