Prodigal Summer
Books | Fiction / Romance / Contemporary
3.9
(315)
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.
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Author
Barbara Kingsolver
Pages
464
Publisher
Faber & Faber
Published Date
2008-09-04
ISBN
0571246222 9780571246229
Community ReviewsSee all
"A slow, rich, beautiful read. Kingsolver has a stronger sense of place than most writers - as well as a sense of family and community. I really appreciate her deft touch with family, love, sex, and grief. This is a story of unfolding characters, and the natural environment is as much a backdrop as a character itself."
T P
Teresa Prokopanko
"I had a hard time getting through the first 2/5ths of this book. It got better, and I did eventually become invested in the story.<br/><br/>There was just so much unnecessary sexual content in this book that colored the story in a negative way for me. I'm not unaccustomed to reading stories with sex in them. I just didn't appreciate the way it was written. Snuck into the middle of a conversation, it's dropped in there that he's entering her. To me, it didn't enhance the story and I was getting pretty disgusted with it. There were a few scenes where it made sense, but others were just bizarre and put a bad taste in my mouth.<br/><br/>I did appreciate the vivid nature imagery, it really plunks you down into that world.<br/><br/>The ending seemed very abrupt to me. There didn't seem to be much of a climax, and then the book is over with a chapter told from a perspective that is not one of the 3 protagonists. Things more or less get tied up, but it just didn't seem like the story was 'over'.<br/><br/>I wanted to like this book more than I actually did."
Onn J
"Not my usual read but the storylines kept me wanting to find out what happened next. Not a short read nor a light read. "
Lindsay Myrick
"One of my all time favorites. Paints a heartbreakingly beautiful portrait of Kentucky’s Appalachia. The romance is very real and tangible. I highly recommend this book to read anytime of year, but most especially at the beginning of summer. "
Jess Miller
