As Kingsolver writes: “To please their beloveds, some women faked orgasm Willa faked composure.”īoth stories are compelling as Thatcher and Willa lead their families during dangerously uncertain times.
Meanwhile, the modern family is led by Willa, a laid-off journalist struggling to hold her family together after her son’s partner kills herself, leaving Willa to take care of her grandson, her young adult daughter who just returned from a mysterious year in Cuba and her disabled father-in-law. The 19th-century plot plays out with Thatcher, assisted behind the scenes by Mary, squaring off versus Vineland’s pre-eminent Creationists, the town founder and the school principal where Thatcher teaches. Later, inside her home, she meets her neighbor and fellow Darwinist, Thatcher Greenwood, surrounded by tarantulas in glass jars as a Venus flytrap “eats” her finger. We first see her from afar, lying face down in her yard peering at something in the grass. Uncovering and appreciating the connections is the best reason to read the book, but here’s a teaser: Mary Treat is the naturalist whom Kingsolver brings to life. That’s not all the two stories have in common, of course.
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