Dellarobia
Turnbow is on her determined way up a forest trail to an ill-advised
tryst when she encounters a sight so extraordinary that she assumes
it is a sign from God. Only later does she learn that she has
stumbled upon a huge colony of monarch butterflies. Usually they
winter on a remote mountain in Mexico, but severe floods seem to have
altered their path to the woods of the Turnbow farm in rural
Tennessee.
The
monarchs divide the family and the small town of Feathertown, and
when entomologist Ovid Byron and his grad students arrive to study
the phenomenon, Dellarobia gets a glimpse of a wider world. No, they
don't fall in love – Kingsolver is much too nuanced a writer for
that cliché. And she manages to poke gentle fun at earnest
treehuggers and ivory tower academics as much as at the Appalachian
hillbillies.
But
the heart of the story is Dellarobia herself, a hardworking,
conflicted wife and mother, whose exposure to the plight of the
butterflies leads her to unexpected choices.
If
this book piques your interest in monarch butterflies and you live in
northern California, I strongly recommend a visit to Natural Bridges
State Beach near Santa Cruz. It has a Monarch Butterly Preserve
where from mid-October to mid-February you can see these beautiful
creatures in their eucalyptus grove habitat.
