Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver

This novel is marvelous, perhaps Kingsolver's best. In the first section of the novel, Kingsolver's central character, Dellarobbia, is climbing the Appalachian mountain behind the home she shares with her husband and two young children toward a hunting shack at the top. She's late twenties, nearsighted, and lusting for the 22 year old hunk she intends to meet. Dellarobbia is fully aware that she is about to destroy the life she now has, and she continues to climb anyway. Stopping at an overlook, she pauses to look at the mountain opposite. She sees it aflame-the sight bowls her over and knocks her out of her fervid state. She has forgotten her glasses and her impaired vision does not allow her to see that the mountain is covered in a vast migratory mass of monarch butterflies.

Dellarobbia climbs back down the mountain and continues her life, only to have it upset by the butterflies. The main people in the life she resumes are these: husband Cub (a good man but not

really a partner for Dellarobbia); her children Preston (5 years old, very smart) and Cordelia (2 years old); mother-in-law Hester ( a churchy woman of some depth, with a mean mouth); father-in-law Bear (ex­ Marine, Viet Nam vet, over-confident and domineering, struggling to avoid total poverty); friend Dovey (smart, irreverent, companion of the heart); and finally Ovid Byron (world-class biologist specializing in monarch butterflies).

Owing to climate change, the monarchs have chosen the mountains of Tennessee as their new winter residence. A crucial question is whether they have chosen wisely-and will be able to survive. It seems natural that all the strands of Dellarobbia's life are involved in the answer to this question, her relaltionships with her local society, church, in-laws, children, and her husband.

Complicating matters and entrancing Dellarobbia, Ovid establishes a monarch research station, at Cub's invitation, just a few steps from Dellarobbia's and Cub's house. As she struggles to raise her children thoughtfully and to life a life of meaning for herself, Dellarobbia falls into infatuation with Ovid, a Caribbean native and a tolerant, thoughtful man who loves his wife. (Cultural footnote: Dellarobbia has no inkling of the origin of her name; Ovid informs her that she is named for a Renaissance artist.

Similarly, she is unaware that Cordelia is also the name of a daughter of King Lear.)

Kingsolver and Dellarobbia work out the entanglements in her life, and along the way treat us to a sympathetic depiction of the culture of a mountain community in Appalachia, an apologia for science and the scientific method, and an explanation of the perils of climate change-all done in terms of human daily life.

Perhaps the best feature of this novel is its language, its style. With Dellarobia as her point-of­ view character, Kingsolver writes with language that is expressive, precise, witty, and fresh. Occasionally as I was reading it, I had to put it down for a while. When I rushed back to it with real anticipation of additional reading pleasure. Kingsolver and Dellarobia never disappointed me.