Flight Behavior Book Review: Why It Won't Fly Off Shelves

I’ve been enjoying global warming lately. I know this is not politically correct to say, but a 74 degree day, in December, in Denver? C’mon, now. Some parts of global warming don’t immediately seem so bad.

Here’s a part of global warming that does seem immediately bad: Barbara Kingsolver’s latest book about it, Flight Behavior. This pains me to say because Barbara Kingsolver is one of my favorite authors. But her latest book is tedious and scientific and way too light on compelling characters grappling with all this tedious, scientific stuff.

I’m good with writers who take a current issue facing our society, fictionalize it and write a humdinger of a book about it to make us care. Writer Jodi Picoult does nothing but this. Fiction is a great opportunity for writers to question the impact an issue has on society and their characters. 

We’re a storytelling people, ever since the cavemen hung out. So it makes sense that the choices people make about an issue -- even made up people -- stay with us, much longer than the newspaper headline about the issue itself. 

But with this approach to a story, the writer walks a thin line. She has to develop our knowledge of the characters and the issue. This is where Kingsolver mis-steps. Flight Behavior is about Dellarobia, a farm wife in Tennessee who discovers millions of monarch butterflies roosting on the mountain behind her house.

The butterflies aren’t supposed to be there on the mountainside. Neither is Dellarobia, who’s a whip-smart, young wife trapped in a dying, farming community by limitations beyond her control. The butterfly phenomenon draws scientists from around the globe. Their presence leads worlds and beliefs to collide for Dellarobia, who can suddenly see a way beyond her limitations.

While science opens up Dellarobia’s world, it closes down the fictional world Kingsolver works so hard to establish. Just when the story starts cooking and you’re really rooting for Dellarobia, Kingsolver throws in a page or two of science about the darn butterflies. She does this the entire book.  

It’s not a bad book, but with her previous works Kingsolver sets the bar high. Flight Behavior doesn’t make the hurdle. But here are some of my Kingsolver favorites that do (in order of most favorite): The Bean Trees, Pigs In Heaven, Prodigal Summer, The Poisonwood Bible.

Pick one of them up this weekend for some global warming enjoyment, I mean outdoor café reading.