I have read most of Barbara Kingsolver’s novels, including her most recent, Flight Behavior, and the beginnings of the Taylor Greer story, contained in the novel The Bean Trees. I always like the author’s easy, unpretentious, humorous style, which does not at all conceal her artistic flair for poetic images and her common-sense understanding of human beings – good and bad. Pigs in Heaven continues the story in which Taylor Greer became a “foster mother” to a three year-old Cherokee Indian girl, whom she names Turtle, because the girl holds her hand so tightly that, like a snapping turtle, she won’t let go “until she hears thunder.” Turtle was abused by her mother’s boyfriend, both sexually and physically, orphaned by her mother’s suicide, and abandoned by her mother’s sister (who gave the child to Taylor at a restaurant to keep the girl from more harm). Taylor was travelling cross-country from Kentucky to Tucson, Arizona, having left her mother to strike out on her own. Turtle was so traumatized by the abuse that she was unable to speak. As Pigs in Heaven begins, Turtle is now six, “legally” adopted by Taylor, and living with Taylor and her boyfriend Jax. The girl seems happy, although she is disturbed by visions of her earlier abuse and is very worried by any indication that her relationship with her mom, Taylor, is at risk.Taylor’s custody of Turtle is at risk, however, because of a fluke event that brings the story of Turtle’s adoption to public attention. A young Cherokee woman, a lawyer, sees Taylor and Turtle on TV, hears Taylor’s adoption story, and is convinced that the adoption is illegal, under the 1978 Federal Indian Child Welfare Act, which prohibits adoption of Indian children by outsiders without approval of the tribe itself. The lawyer, Annawake Fourkiller, contacts Taylor. Taylor promptly disappears with the child. The novel follows Taylor’s travails on the road, in Las Vegas and later in Seattle.Eventually, Taylor and Taylor’s mother, Alice, face Annawake in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, the tribal capital of the Cherokee Nation. Alice and her daughter, Taylor, are part Cherokee and Alice knew her cousin, Sugar, during her teenage years in Mississippi. Sugar lives near Tahlequah and takes Alice into her home and helps her relate to her Cherokee relatives. The life of these relatives and their concerns about Taylor and Turtle are very moving and forms the heart of this novel.I will quote a few passages that I hope convey the author’s writing style. This novel is well worth your reading time. Since she found Turtle in her car and adopted her three years ago, she has had many moments of not believing she’s Turtle’s mother. This child is the miracle Taylor wouldn’t have let in the door if it had knocked. But that’s what miracles are, she supposes. The things nobody saw coming.He tells her, “Sex will get you through times with no money better than money will get you through times with no sex.” “The thing I really missed was your jokes.”They are a planeload of people ignoring each other. Alice has spent her life in small towns and is new to this form of politeness, in which people sit for all practical purposes on top of one another in a public place and behave like upholstery.The fish curve and buck and thrust themselves against the current, dying to get upstream and pass themselves on. Taylor stands flanked by Turtle and Steven. For a long time the three of them are very still before the glass, framed by greenish light and a wall of solid effort. “I know how they feel,” Steven says, his voice amused. “It’s like getting into someplace that isn’t wheelchair accessible.” I know how they feel, Taylor thinks, and it’s not like getting into anywhere at all. It’s working yourself for all you’re worth to get ahead, and still going backward. She holds Turtle against her side so she won’t look up and see her mother’s tears.Taylor is aware of being the white person here. Since her arrival in Oklahoma, she has felt her color as a kind of noticeable heat rising off her skin, something like a light bulb mistakenly left on and burning in a roomful of people who might disapprove.Taylor can still remember the day when she first understood she’d received the absolute power of motherhood—that force that makes everyone else step back and agree that she knows what’s best for Turtle. It scared her to death. But giving it up now makes her feel infinitely small and alone.
The funniest part about my adoration of Barbara Kingsolver is that my favorite book of hers is not The Poisonwood Bible. In fact, of the three books of hers I have read now, that is probably my least favorite. Prodigal Summer still probably ranks as my favorite, followed very closely by this one, Pigs in Heaven. My biggest disappointment upon finishing this novel occurred when I went back to the library to find another Kingsolver book and discovered that the only one they had was actually a prequel to this novel! I hadn't known The Bean Trees came first in the telling of these character's stories, and I was tremendously disappointed to find out that I already knew the story of The Bean Trees without having read it in Kingsolver's vivid, elegant prose.What I love about her writing is that it is so beautiful without trying to be so. You get a stunning picture of southern and midwestern landscapes and a true sense of people's lifestyles and ethnicities without her, as an author, shoving these facts and descriptions in your face. Somehow, she blends them into the language so seamlessly and so convincingly that you end up feeling them rather than knowing them. This is the mark of a truly successful writer, as far as I am concerned. And the mark of a truly successful book is one in which I do not find myself wanting to edit as I read. That is not something she achieved with The Poisonwood Bible--I badly wanted to edit the ending of that novel--but Pigs in Heaven kept me page-turning relentlessly without one critique, in spite of my ability to predict the ending.Now there was a real accomplishment, because I hate to predict endings. But somehow, Kingsolver and those pigs pulled it off. I look forward to her next novel.
What do You think about Pigs In Heaven (1994)?
I was looking forward to this sequel to The Bean Trees, which I quite liked. Taylor and her adopted Cherokee daughter Turtle are back, three years later. They got their 15 minutes of fame when 6-year-old Turtle witnessed an accident, saved somebody, and went on Oprah to talk about it. Unfortunately, a lawyer from the Cherokee Nation seaw Turtle on Oprah and threateed to disrupt Taylor and Turtle's happy life together.I was so disappointed. The entire purpose of this book is to drive home The Point. Instead of being the fleshed-out characters from The Bean Trees, Taylor and Turtle are both two-dimensional characters whose sole purpose is to provide some semblance of plot between yammering on about The Point. The lawyer character was only created so she could spout off facts relating to The Point.And what is The Point of the book? The Point is to tell us that Cherokees were unfairly driven off their land 200 years ago, and to mention that there's more to the Cherokee tribe than poverty and unemployment. I mean, it's not even original. And I'm annoyed that Barbara Kingsolver stole characters from a book I loved in order to pontificate for 350 pages about how the Cherokee Nation has been mistreated and unfairly judged.
—Heidi
I enjoy Kingsolver's books, but your succinct review made me laugh. A friend who has chosen not to have children once pointed out to me how in all of Kingsolver's books the pinnacle for the female characters is a relationship with a man and motherhood. I think that's a valid criticism. I was frankly annoyed by Animal, Vegetable, Miracle when I read it.
—Liz
This is the sequel to the wonderful novel, The Bean Trees. For some strange reason, the books do not label each other as sequels, but the so very much are. Basic Summary: This picks up 3 years after the conclusion of The Bean Trees, when Turtle (who was thrust upon Taylor at a bar on the side of the road in Oklahoma) has fully settled into life with her Non-Indian mother in Arizona. Everything changes for them after Turtle is the only witness to a man falling down a spillway at Hoover Dam; an event that makes her a primetime hero. She's featured on Oprah, with other children who have saved lives, and is spotted by Annawake Fourkiller - a lawyer for the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma. Annawake instantly knows that Turtle is Cherokee and begins finding a way to have her returned to the tribe where, Annawake feels, she best belongs. Shenanigans and hijinx ensue in this moving tale of family, Cherokee culture and the gentle way of the South. This book was delicately written, soft-spoken with such unexpected power. I had tears in my eyes by the end of the book, eagerly devouring each page -- anxious to find out what would happen to Turtle. Barbara Kingsolver does an unmatched job of creating depth in her surroundings. It is evident that she cares very much about the seemingly innocuous details of the Cherokee tribe culture, the southern dialects, the NW weather.. everything she put to words, she put with her heart.I loved this book.Favorite Quotes:1) "I think TV does all the talking for you and after awhile you forget how to hold up your end".2) "Cash wanted to know every single how and what, in order to muffle the sound of 'why?'."3) "Everybody's got their troubles, and their reasons for getting a clean start. People's always curious for the details, but seem like that's just because we're hoping somebody else's life is a worst mess than ours".4) "He's not really running away, Angie explained, he just don't have a real good understanding of where home ends and the rest of the world picks up".
—Tima
