Will Byrnes's Reviews > Unsheltered

The simplest thing would be to tear it down,” the man said. “The house is a shambles.”

You do the right thing. You go to school, spend the years, invest the money, put off this or that temporary form of glee, take on the debt, pay it off. Get a job at the bottom of the ladder, work X number of years and move up. There are mis-steps, of course, accidents, bad decisions, re-directions, disappointments. Some big, some less so, everyone has these. You get married, have children, be a solid citizen, join the board of a local youth council, coach your kids’ ball teams. You do the right thing, and everything is supposed to work out ok. You’re not looking to be a millionaire. But you want to send your kids to good schools, see them go to college, have satisfying adult lives of their own. You do the right thing. You don’t cheat on your taxes, or your spouse, you keep trying to learn new things, not just to keep up with changing work skills, but to understand the events and transformations that are taking place in the world, and to satisfy an unquenchable need to learn, to sate that mental itch that keeps laughing at you as an imbecile, correctable only by learning, reading, watching, gathering knowledge, trying to make sense of it. You plan for the future, and have a sane expectation that, someday, you can retire and still have a decent life. You do the right thing, follow the course that has been laid out for a very long time, expecting that the promised rewards will arrive. And sometimes they do. But while you were busy doing the right thing, those with the power and the money changed the rules of engagement. So, instead of an American Dream made real, it is as if you have stepped into an episode of The Twilight Zone. It is a time in which the promises of the past have not just been broken, they have been stolen. And much that could not be hauled away has been set ablaze, or left in pieces by the side of The Road, and so many who live in terror have been persuaded to keep telling themselves that it’s A Good Life. Don’t fight it or it might get worse, much, much worse. Better yet, find some groups who have nothing to do with the real changes and blame them. The right thing has been exposed as a long con, a sucker’s game, rigged, the prizes snatched away even when you hit the bullseye. And those doing the yanking laugh at their victims as prey, as marks. Things fall apart; the center cannot hold, as it is devoured from the right.


Barbara Kingsolver - image from her site

We live in a time of upheaval. People who have been victimized forever are gaining respect and rights. Same sex marriage is the law of the land, legalization of marijuana is spreading across the country, MeToo is holding accountable many abusers who acted in flagrant disregard for common human decency. Many deservedly respected norms have been tossed aside with a sneer. Notions of fair play seem quaint, civility is in tatters, the earth itself is rebelling against the excesses of short-sighted human folly. So, right up Barbara Kingsolver’s alley. She has always written about big picture issues. She wrote about colonialism in The Poisonwood Bible, about climate change in Flight Behavior, about the divide between art and politics in the USA, among other things, in The Lacuna. In an interview she did recently with Goodreads, Kingsolver says:

The question in this case was, "What in the heck is going on?" How can it be that all of the rules—about what kind of leaders people admire and elect to public office, and how we behave as citizens of the world—no longer seem to apply. All the rules seem to be changing. And not only that, but larger, biological rules about our home, the idea that the poles would always be covered with ice, and that there would always be more fish in the sea. All these things that I've always counted on suddenly were no longer true… One of the things you can count on is that people will be very afraid, and they will cleave to leaders who reassure them, even if those leaders behave like tyrannical bullies. When we're afraid, we look for protection. One of the things this book is about is how desperately we hold on to our old world views, even when they no longer serve us, and how we overlook a lot of things to find reassurance.

Kingsolver addresses this with a binocular view. In one lens it is 2016, in the other the 1870s.

In today’s cast, Willa Knox is a fifty-something journalist, was, is, might still be. The publication for which she had been working went belly up, and now she tries to patch together enough freelance gigs to bring in at least some money, while working on writing a book. Her husband, Iano Tavoularis, had achieved that glory of glories, tenure at a respected college, well, until that institution likewise folded, and Iano was tossed back to the bottom rung, becoming a migrant worker, moving from school to school on one-year contracts at bottom-rung pay. The family includes an adult son, Zeke, living in Boston, a twenty-something daughter, Antigone (Tig), living at home for now, and Iano’s disabled father, Old Nick, the vile relation who leaves no opportunity untaken for spewing his lifelong bigotry, the crazy uncle who ruins family gatherings with mindless opposition to anything decent, the sort of person who refuses to sign up for Medicare, seeing it as a welfare program, despite that action endangering not only his own miserable life, but the lives of the family members determined to take care of him, a fan of Fox and Rush. The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.

In the 1870s, Thatcher Greenwood, like Iano, is a teacher in a local school. He had done the right thing, learned some medicine while serving in the Civil War, studied, and now teaches science. He worked himself up from meager beginnings. His wife, Rose, about ten years his junior, was raised with higher expectations, in a family that did well, until their breadwinner died unexpectedly, and they found that they had not been left so well off as they had imagined. While sustaining her aspirations for a comfortable life, reality intervened, and Rose accepted Thatch’s proposal.

One of the great gifts of this novel is the introduction to most of us of a new name in the history of science. Fictional Thatcher’s friend, Mary Treat, was a very real and noteworthy 19th century scientist, having published many papers of original research, and having maintained ongoing communications with some of the brightest scientific lights of the time, including Darwin.

Each era is allowed to host its own travails, while mirroring those of its opposite number. Thatch is forced to debate Darwinism with the head of his school, a man who is firmly dedicated to religious explanations for all reality, however extremely he must stretch his rationales to match observable facts. Despite the one hundred fifty years between, we are still infected by people who refuse to accept observable, measurable facts, people who cling to their ignorance as tenaciously as a survivor of the USS Indianapolis to a life-raft.

The concern with tyranny is made overt in the historical side of things, as the founder of Vineland, a self-inflated monster who engages in behavior that Donald Trump has only dreamed of (so far as we know), seeing himself as more king than political leader, carries his hatred of a critical press to an extreme. Trump is never named, but is referred to as The Bullorn, the period of the contemporary setting coinciding with the 2016 presidential primaries and election.

“I wonder what service is possible…when half the world, with no understanding of Darwin at all, will rally around whoever calls him a criminal and wants him hanged.” – he’d witnessed this very thing in a market square in Boston: the crude effigy dangling from a noose, the monkey’s tail pinned to the stuffed trousers, the murderous crowd chanting Lock him up!…“I suppose it is in our nature,” she said…“When men fear the loss of what they know, they will follow any tyrant who promises to restore the old order.”

The central image that crosses the timelines is the notion of shelter. Kingsolver has placed both families in buildings that are crumbling, in the same location, a nice stand-in for the demise of extant societal underpinnings. It is brought in as well to describe why people can be so resistant to new ideas. Science in particular is a venue where Kingsolver has frequently offered insight, connecting the demise of physical spaces here to the feeling of vulnerability.

”We are given to live in a remarkable time. When the nuisance of old mythologies falls away from us, we may see with new eyes.”
“Falls away, or is torn. The old mythologies are a comfort to many.”
“But we are creatures like any other. Mr. Darwin’s truth in inarguable.”
“And because it is true, we will argue against it as creatures do. Our eyes are not new, nor are our teeth and claws. I’m afraid I see a great burrowing back toward our old supremacies, Mrs Treat. No creature is easily coerced to live without its shelter.”
“Without shelter, we feel ourselves likely to die.”

Offering an explanation for so many who voted against their own economic interest in 2016, in hopes, however ill-informed, that the right would restore a mythical, lost world. From a more optimistic perspective

“…your pupils depend on it, Thatcher. Their little families have come here looking for safety, but they will go on laboring under old authorities until their heaven collapses. Your charge is to lead them out of doors. Teach them to see evidence for themselves, and not to fear it.”
“To stand in the clear light of day, you once said, Unsheltered.”

There are many stressors portrayed, particularly for the contemporaries, that will keep that very large gong, very close to your head, vibrating long and loud, with widespread and lasting resonance. The anti-science terrors have been noted above. Contemporary families must cope with the horrors of the cost of medical care in the last so-called advanced nation that lacks universal coverage. Willa and Iano not only have a disabled elderly family member, who resists the public programs that might cover him, but are the recipients of an unexpected surprise, when their twenty-something son and his gf have a baby, mom, in a burst of 21st century strangeness in the USA, not surviving. Guess where dad and child wind up? Well, child mostly, as young dad returns to the world of work to try to make his way, Granny Willa and Auntie Tig taking on the parenting duties. Mention is made of Zeke’s six-figure college debt, and working as an intern, because if he took a job he would have to start paying back his mortgage-level school debt. The 1870s presented some different stresses, including a look at the particular challenges of being female, when identity was more tied to one’s family and significant-other than may be the case today.

The book also looks at self-sufficiency in both timelines. Mary Treat must make a living as a single woman without an actual job, so finds a way, while doing work she loves. Willa must make her way as a freelancer after her employment options are whittled down to none. Tig is a marvel of making do, using her creativity and diverse work exposures to find ways to make her life work, despite the absence of a decent income.

Kingsolver is all about themes, ideas, issues, big pictures, but if her characters do not engage, the questions being asked will not be considered. Thankfully, Willa and Thatch are both wonderfully drawn. Good people, coping in difficult circumstances, the walls, literally, falling down around them, while accepting responsibility for trying to keep the families safe. Willa’s travails mirrored a lot of my own, so rang a bit louder. Tig was maybe the most interesting, for her diversity of life experiences, and superior ability to cope in trying times. Old Nick was delightfully unspeakable, if a bit of a broad portrayal. Mary Treat was the most interesting from a reality perspective, but her character does not really move very far once we get to see what she is about.

Consider the book quote with which we began this review. Can you really tear it all down? What if you do not yet have something with which to replace it? What if you do not have the means with which to build something else? Rotten structures we may have, but replacement takes time, focus, a plan, and resources. Kingsolver is not interested in providing an architectural plan for our next residence, but she does offer some notions of what it might include, particularly via conversations between Willa and her daughter.

One complaint that some have about Kingsolver’s writing is that it can be too overtly political. This good, that bad. Not that there is anything wrong with a book being political. Some things are good, like openness to science. Other things are bad, like autocracy. But the methodology can be subtle and effective or blatant and off-putting. In showing Mary Treat’s love for science, Kingsolver offers a marvel of examples of her work. Showing without telling. Thatcher struggles to frame his defense of Darwinian reason in such a way that he can hang onto his job, and not offend his creationist boss. This resonates with the struggles that are engaged in today over religious groups trying to force public schools to teach that great oxymoron, creationist science, and its twin, intelligent design, as valid scientific theory, and not as what they are, religious dogma. However, with Willa and Tig, in their discussions of what has been happening in today’s world, how things are changing, there is an excess of what felt like lecturing to me. Tig had been shown acting on her perspective. Explaining it all seemed excessive. On the other hand, showing how Charles Landis, a real estate developer and the founder of Vineland, exploited his position to persuade the uncritical of his wonderfulness, was a wonderful means by which to show how the contemporary one percent manipulate public opinion.

We may wonder what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? You do the right thing. If you’re lucky it works out. If you started life with a leg up your chances are pretty good, but for the rest of us, well, the right thing don’t mean squat. What do you do when those making the promises steal everything and criminalize resistance? What do you do when your votes are nullified by crooked politicians and stacked courts? We may wonder how best to cope with the changes that are transforming our world. We may be disappointed, or worse, that the rules by which we lived proved to be an illusion, but we may also discover or create new ones. We may seek ways to right wrongs, and we may search for means by which to defend ourselves from further onslaught. Perhaps the best we can offer is to do the right thing, whatever that right thing may be, even if it means having to discover anew what that right thing actually is. In our national house, the roof has been blown off by the latest dire weather. Decisions must be made. Where to rebuild, how to rebuild, even, I suppose, whether to rebuild. We are living in an unsheltered time and Barbara Kingsolver has captured the feeling of exposure that so many of us have been experiencing.

Review posted – October 19, 2018

Publication date – October 16, 2018


I resonated bigly with this novel, but did not want to clutter the review with too many personal details, (well, more than I already have) so am tucking a few paragraphs under the spoiler tag, for any who might have an interest, and parking it in Comment #1.


=============================EXTRA STUFF

The author’s personal site

Items of Interest
-----A Wiki on Mary Treat
-----A Wiki on Charles Landis, the founder of Vineland
-----From the Paris Review, a piece on William Butler Yeats, and the poem, The Second Coming, which I sprinkled into the review.
-----The Book Trail is a site that helps you visit locations noted in particular books

Interviews
-----The Goodreads interview - by Kerry Shaw
----The Guardian - Barbara Kingsolver: ‘It feels as though we’re living through the end of the world’ - by Lidija Haas

Reviews of other Kingsolver books
-----The Poisonwood Bible
-----The Lacuna
-----Flight Behavior