One of Susan Fletcher's favourite books.
A fascinating story told from the perspective of a mother and her four daughters who have been taken to the Congo, by the father of the family, on a mission to bring God to the people there. Politics, religion, feminism….it’s all here as they cope with the extreme differences from Georgia, USA, in a country going through it’s own political and social upheavals. A thoroughly satisfying read.
March 2010 Guest Editor Susan Fletcher on The Poisonwood Bible...
Kingsolver's novel follows the fortunes of the Price family - a fanatical Baptist preacher from Georgia, his wife and their four daughters - as they go to the Belgian Congo in the late 1950s, as missionaries. It instantly ticks boxes for me, in its poetical language, and in how richly and convincingly Kingsolver portrays the Congo - its heat, noise, smell, discomforts and beauty pour off the pages. But what I was most taken with was how deftly Kingsolver writes as five different people. All four daughters and the mother tell their tales - and every voice is her own. Moreover, I loved the fact that the mother - speaking retrospectively - mentions early on that one of her daughters "remains in the dank red earth." I could not guess which daughter would die, or how. And for all the preparation, when the death came I was genuinely bereft - it's an extraordinarily quiet, painful scene. I see this book as a wonderful example of how to write in many voices.
| Primary Genre | Modern and Contemporary Fiction |
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