The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 10 January 2000
by Barbara Kingsolver
As a sequel to The Bean Trees, this book certainly lives up to the quality of Kingsolver's previous work, and occasionally exceeds it. Three years later, more or less, Taylor Greer is still living and working in Tucson, raising her adopted little girl, Turtle. A bizarre sequence of events that opens the book places Taylor and Turtle in the national limelight for a moment, bringing them to the attention of an activist young lawyer who is a member of the Cherokee tribe in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. Annawake Fourkiller immediately recognizes the heritage of little Turtle, and her suspicions are aroused over the legality of the adoption. Federal law requires tribal approval for adoptions outside of the tribe, and Turtle's adoption, as recalled in The Bean Trees was anything but official. Bringing this to Taylor's attention, Annawake unleashes a chaotic turn of events that puts Taylor and Turtle on the run to Seattle, and brings Taylor's mother into the warm family atmosphere of tribal Tahlequah. Kingsolver's writing is emotional and witty. Occasionally, though, the turns of phrase feel too well thought over. The tumble of carefully thought out aphorisms and touching asides tends to obscure the flow of the tale. More jarring is the appearance and disappearance of interesting characters like so many dead-end side roads to the story. It is as if the author was rushing to her point at the end of the story. Perhaps even trying to ammend the earlier book with a literary correction. Nevertheless, this is certainly a good book. It is warm and heartfelt, and even educational.
Also by Kingsolver: [The Bean Trees] [High Tide in Tucson] [Holding the Line] [The Poisonwood Bible] [Prodigal Summer] [Unsheltered]