Prodigal Summer

Written by Barbara Kingsolver

Narrated by Barbara Kingsolver

National Bestseller

“A blend of breathtaking artistry, encyclopedic knowledge of the natural world. . . and ardent commitment to the supremacy of nature.” — San Francisco Chronicle

In this beautiful novel, Barbara Kingsolver, acclaimed author of The Poisonwood Bible and the Pulitzer-Prize winning Demon Copperhead, and recipient of the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguish Contribution to American Letters, weaves together three stories of human love within a larger tapestry of lives inhabiting the forested mountains and struggling small farms of southern Appalachia.

Over the course of one humid summer, as the urge to procreate overtakes the lush countryside, this novel's intriguing protagonists—a reclusive wildlife biologist, a young farmer's wife marooned far from home, and a pair of elderly, feuding neighbors—face disparate predicaments but find connections to one another and to the flora and fauna with whom they necessarily share a place. Their discoveries are embedded inside countless intimate lessons of biology, the realities of small farming, and the final, urgent truth that humans are only one piece of life on earth.

Prodigal Summer is a hymn to wildness that celebrates the prodigal spirit of human nature, and of nature itself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Nov 8, 2005
• ISBN: 9780060894634

Barbara Kingsolver

Barbara Kingsolver is the author of ten bestselling works of fiction, including the novels Unsheltered, The Bean Trees, and The Poisonwood Bible, as well as books of poetry, essays, creative nonfiction, and Coyote’s Wild Home, a children’s book co-authored with Lily Kingsolver. She also collaborated with family members on the influential Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life. Kingsolver’s work has been translated into more than thirty languages and has earned a devoted readership at home and abroad. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and has received numerous awards and honors including the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her novel, Demon Copperhead, the National Humanities Medal, and most recently, the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters and its Lifetime Achievement Award. She lives with her husband on a farm in southern Appalachia.

Reviews for Prodigal Summer

[karinwgibson · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One of my best books!
Enjoyed it even more than the first time I listened to it. Barbara and the birdsong is a wonderful listening combination.

[Karen · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The story was lovely and narration exquisite. Left me wanting more.

[trenna squires · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Lovely descriptions of nature. And very interesting story. Had trouble putting it down. It was so interesting.

[Alma Quillian · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Pretty slow at first,but poetic. I think to enjoy this book you have to have a true appreciation of nature and it doesn't hurt to have real concern for the planet. I learned a lot and personally,I loved it.

[tracy wright · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I came around to this book after wanting to go back and read more Barbara Kingsolver books. Her ever present nature character had me enthralled and her human characters were beautifully flawed and real and knowable. Loved this book and the audio version was a special treat with her reading and the sounds of the woods in between chapters.

[Dawn Ahern-Hodson · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I just love Kingsolver's writing. While I didn't love the ending (I wasn't ready for it to end) I enjoyed every bit of it. It was so poetic and beautifully written.

[Rebecca Byrne · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Sooooooo long and drawn out— but I suppose that’s the writing style. She writes beautifully, so descriptively that you feel as if you are in the fields with her! And in the middle, when the stories were coming together, it was more enjoyable. But I feel like this could have been cut in half easily, to fit a novel.

[dickcraig · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Another great Kingsolver book.

[KimSidebothamLennert · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Beautiful story telling. Beautiful writing. Have recommended over and over

[patricia warzecha · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Great character development.. Loved this book. I will be reading all Kingsolver books

[well7readneck · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

My least favorite Kingsolver to date.

[bookconcierge · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is closer in style to her earlier novels. Set in Appalachia, it follows three "couples" - Dianne Wolf & Eddie Bando; Lusa & Cole/Rickie; and Garrett & Ninnie. There's lots of description of the interconnectedness of nature, the wonder of nature, how no one is ever really alone. I'm having a difficult time describing it, but it's a good book. I enjoyed it immensely ... and would hope for a sequel.

[Laura · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Wonderful story! Beautifully developed characters.

Well read by the author, but my one annoyance is the audio — the volume is all over the place. Quiet parts are nearly inaudible, and then the loud moments and bird sounds between chapters hurt my ears.

[Donna Manning · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

beautiful prose inspiring female characters and a compassionate understanding of humans and nature.

[Clare Morgan · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Delicate traceries of description interweave the separate narratives and grand themes. A masterful plea for what we all so need to reclaim in our personal and community lives.
An added bonus is the author's voice infusing her characters
with life.

[sbsolter · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I can hardly find words to describe how delicious Prodigal Summer was. I have loved everything I've read by Barbara Kingsolver, but if I had to pick a favorite by her this would definitely be in the running. The scope of the story-line is small, but the themes are large. It follows three characters in the Southern Appalachians, who are loosely connected, through one summer. Biology and nature play a large role; describing it to my husband I called it an "ode to ecology." But Kingsolver also goes beyond that: while the non-human ecological systems of predator/prey and mating are important to the story in their own right, they are also a reflection of these processes as they occur between the humans in the story. Kingsolver's writing is sumptuous and atmospheric and she makes the weather and the setting feel almost like additional characters in the story. I highly recommend this quiet and beautiful novel!

[rebarelishesreading · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Prodigal Summer tells the parallel, yet intertwined, stories of four main characters:Deanna Wolfe is a naturalist, in her laste 40's and divorced, who works as a forest ranger and lives in a cabin deep within the patch of forest she is responsible for -- she's alone and she likes it that way;Lusa Landowski Widener a 30ish entomologist from "the city", daughter of a Polish Jew and a middle-eastern Muslim, who marries and moves to her husbands struggling family farm in the Appalachians -- she's struggling to fit in with his large, strong-minded family;Nannie Rawley, a mid-seventies earth mother who runs an organic apple farm -- she is loved by the community but her lifestyle, and strong opposition to chemicals, leaves them with their heads shaking; Garnett Walker, Nannie's neighbor, is in his late 70's. He's a retired agriculture science teacher with a strong belief in pesticides and herbicides. He's a crochety, bitter old widower who spends his time trying to develop a hybrid American chestnut tree that will be resistant to a disease that has wiped out most of the chestnuts in the area. He and Nannie are constantly at odds.I loved the characters, even had some sympathy for grumpy old Garnett, and was totally taken by their stories. I couldn't wait to find out what happened next and didn't want it to end. I also appreciated interesting biological information and the strong environmental message Kingsolver provided.The book closes with: "He might have watched her for a long time, until he believed himself and this other restless life in his sight to be the only two creatures left here in this forest of dripping leaves, breathing in some separate atmosphere that was somehow more rarefied and important than the world of air silently exhaled by the leaves all around them.But he would have been wrong. Solitude is a human presumption. Every quiet step is thunder to beetle life underfoot, a tug of impalpable thread on the web pulling mate to mate and predator to prey, a beginning or an end. Every choice is a world made new for the chosen."

[imperfectcj · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I found myself feeling homesick for Appalachia reading this book. Kingsolver brought back the visceral experience of a Southern summertime in the mountains. The friend who recommended this book said that she enjoyed it because the main characters were all women she wanted to be like, and I can agree with this. I like reading a book where it's clear that, though they make mistakes, everyone has the best of intentions at each decision point. I also really enjoyed the way Kingsolver presented the intricate interrelations of a small town. Some of her use of the local dialect was a little self-conscious, I thought (she used the phrase "gives me the all-overs" a little more often than I thought necessary), but overall, I found this book to be a thoroughly enjoyable read. I was very satisfied with the full-circle feel of the ending compared to the beginning.

[Wendi · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Barbara does an amazing job with each character and intertwines them beautifully into an amazing story. Loved this book.

[Kate Doherty · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Entrancing. Ecology, humanism, relationships, grief, sex, history, wonderful engaging characters. A beautiful read.

[cheryl_in_cc_nv · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

There are some problems. Garnett is a straw man, unrealistically ignorant & backwards. Crys would never have confided in Lusa so readily, but been quiet, secretive, almost sullen. Kroger is not nearly that bad a place to work. The biological & ecological information really is the focus of the book and the blurb should more accurately reflect that. And all the different kinds of love, well, pretty much they're different kinds of close friendships, imo.

But it's still a great read.

[Betty Brunson · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Didn't want story to end. Bird calls nice but too loud.

[Paula Walker · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I’m so happy I read this. I learned so much about the little things in nature and what we think of as the big things in life. It’s an upside down world now, to me.

[eosch1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I liked it. Some readers have found the nature and animal sections too long or boring, but I enjoyed them. I also liked the lyrical prose...it was soothing.

[ldvoorberg · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Lots of nature and enjoyment of nature -- exactly what I like! A pleasant read of two women and one cranky old man whose lives are connected by the county they live in. Lots of discussion on conservation, environmentalism, ecology, farming, invasives, hunting, etc. Typical themes of Kingsolver.

[smits_52 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I really enjoyed this book. So descriptive of the wonders of the natural world from moths to coyotes. Included is this novel also are endearing characters who blend into nature like forest ranger Deana or new arrival Lusa who as a recent widow must learn how to survive in a farming community.. I especially liked Garnett, an 80 year old, nearsighted long time resident feuding but caring for his fellow senior Nannie next door but mostly squabbling with her. When he takes his shotgun out to protect her from an intruder who turns out to be a scarecrow, I laughed out loud.

[librolindsay · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Her most recent piece of fiction, Prodigal Summer is definitely BK's most science-y novel yet (but you can still count on a parallel romantic plot like her previous novels). You can see how her focus has been shifting in recent years. She expertly blends three different story lines in Southern Appalachia country, which is proving to be one of her writing strengths (see The Poisonwood Bible). This book also examines the heart of issues surrounding tobacco, endangered species, and the cycle of life (sorry, couldn't think of a less corny phrase). I didn't want it to end--I'm still keeping my fingers crossed for a sequel, like Pigs in Heaven to The Bean Trees.

[lgcullens · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a noteworthy book that exemplifies accomplished writing, interleaving the natural world with the more immediate human bubble, depicting conflicting proclivities through contrasting characters, even contradictions in individual thinking. Also in showing how alike all life forms are, differing for the most part only morphologically in niche adaptation with varying subjective perspectives.

An example of contradictory thinking depicted is one of the characters believing wholeheartedly in 'Creation Science,' yet trying to improve the disease resistance of a tree species through successive artificial selection — the same technique Nature employs through evolution. 'Survival of the fittest' has nothing to do with with brutishness, and everything to do with adaptability.

"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." ~ Mark Twain

There is more to the story to be sure, with characters fleshed out realistically, some even exhibiting a bit of comic relief, plot-line dots to be connected, and the absurdities, misunderstandings, and caring in extended family and neighbor relations. The essence of the story to me though, is our weedy species inability for the most part to recognize what sustains our being any more than our animal cousins do — the connectedness of all life.

Like humans, "A bird never doubts its place at the center of the universe." [from Prodigal Summer]

As an example of the plot, in the first chapter the story begins in introducing the reader to not only a main character, but also to Nature in the randiness of spring as seen through the human umwelt. It's a thread exploited further as the story progresses, spiked with joy, enmity, loss, and irony. What better way to grab the reader's interest than with hormonal enticement, the subjective issues it engenders, and accompanying pleasures and resentments. In my experience, that's the cornerstone of much of literature. I'm not complaining mind you, I'm for whatever might work to hopefully instill a better understanding of the natural world that sustains us — that for the sake of our futures.

What may annoy some in this writing are passages of character thoughts that those reading for entertainment only don't want to think about. Even these character thoughts aren't necessarily dispensed as gospel though, as they may be muddled, even contradicted, further on, leaving the reader to ponder the subjective good vs. bad aspects of the natural world that perplex us. Nature is oblivious to our considered rights and wrongs, adapting life forms in moving on, intent on balancing the paradoxical and symbiotic interactions among evolving life forms in preserving a continuum of physical life.

"The skill of writing is to create a context in which other people can think." ~ Edwin Schlossberg

I thought the story even handed and the ending a nice touch. I also thought the story well crafted in knowing what to leave out.

Even to those averse to the natural world being a relevant 'character' in the story though, it can be an engrossing read. Pair this book with reading other quality eco-lit, like that of Wendell Berry, Richard Powers, Edward O. Wilson, Rachel Carson, etc., and there is the potential of a heap of wisdom to be gained. It's our futures that are at stake ;-)

[castlelass · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book seems like a platform for the author to provide information about the natural world and the environment. There are many examples – dialogues about moths, snakes, honeybees, coyotes, invasive species, the demise of the chestnut tree, the importance of predators to the ecosystem, and the list goes on and on. It’s not that I disagree with her stance, but I would much prefer non-fiction on these topics rather than reading it as a dialogue among characters. It does not feel natural to the way people speak. There are three interwoven stories set in rural Appalachia. It is very “backwoods-y” in tone and dialect. I have enjoyed other books by Barbara Kingsolver, but this one is not her best in my opinion.

[coffeefairy · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One of my favorite books. I recommend this to a lot of people and I keep multiple copies so I can give it away to someone when I know they will love it.

How do I know they will love it? When someone brings up a love of nature and/or an understanding of the interconnectedness between nature and people, I recommend "Prodigal Summer."

The book speaks to that aforementioned interconnectedness and the value of the ecosystem and the vitality and importance of it and the creatures in it. It's a wonderful read. Kingsolver writes the most beautiful stories.