Kingsolver’s latest novel Flight Behavior transported me back to the mountains of Appalachia— to a small town in Tennessee that I’d spent many years in as a young woman. And through her protagonist, another young woman by the musical name of Dellarobia Turnbow, I was ushered into the life of small sheep farming community who find themselves in the midst of uncovering a most unusual and beautiful phenomenon on their mountainside: a multitude of monarchs that have migrated so far up north that it is nothing short of mysterious. Until, of course, it is discovered that this strange and breathtaking phenomenon might have nothing less than a very simple scientific basis to it: global warming.
With courage and skill, Kingsolver tells a story of epic proportions with a strong undercurrent of apocalyptic endings if this concept of climate change, also known as global warming is not studied and understood. But in the course of doing so, she introduces us to many a concept that is otherwise not spoken of too much: the dire poverty and levels of illiteracy that generations of rural Americans seem to be steeped in; the prejudices of color and class that weigh in and take their toll on life and living every day; and the failing school systems that do not equip our youth for a future in higher education.
We hear Kingsolver’s sharp mind and reasoning reflected in Turnbow’s personality, and it is obvious that Turnbow despite her basic high school education who is married in a shotgun wedding at the age of seventeen, is also a kind of ecologist, concerned with the way she and the other members of her community adjust — or don’t — to their unusual circumstances. She forces us to ask of ourselves: what behavior is hard-wired? When and how do people have real choices? And how can we make a difference?
