PIGS IN HEAVEN
BY
BARBARA KINGSOLVER
Barbara Kingsolver is perhaps one of my top three
favorite writers and for good reason. She writes easily (or so it seems) in dialogue anyone can understand and appreciate. Her characters are rich and by the end of the books you feel as if you would know each of these people were you to see them on the street.
Pigs in Heaven is the continuing saga of Turtle, the baby, now 6 year old child, given to Taylor in a parking lot by a woman desperate to get the baby somewhere safe. As it turns out, the baby had been abused physically and sexually (aren't they the same thing?). Taylor had no choice but to take the baby and raise her, calling her Turtle for reasons you must discover for yourself in the first book about this Mother/Daughter,
The Bean Trees.
When Turtle witnesses an accident at the Hoover Dam and the subsequent rescue takes place with the media in attendance, events are set in motion that will forever alter the lives not only of Turtle, her adoptive mother, Taylor and Grandmother, Alice but countless other lives as well. The
Cherokee Nation sees a child that must be their own and fights to recover the child that belongs to the nation before it belongs to the mother. The Tribal lawyer, Annawake, fights a clean fight and tries to keep her own demons at bay and not let them influence her but discovers that her painful loss must be considered here.
This is a story of coming full circle, not just for the child but for others in her life, people she doesn't even know yet. You will laugh at the saucy rhetoric, the behind the scenes stories of Taylor's boyfriend and former landlord and Alice's take on life. I learned a little about the Cherokee Nation and how
important tradition and preservation of the tribe is to their existence. There are moments of heartbreak, fear, desperation and finally exultation.
This story is full of coincidence and chance meetings that play such an important role in the story. After reading
Pigs in Heaven, I began to see how these "chance meetings" happen to us all and how we accept them and react to them could make all the difference. One of the characters we meet is Barbie (yes, like the doll). You can't help but feel sorry for her but don't be fooled. Barbie is only with us in a few chapters but again, her part in the story is pivotal. My sister did not like this book because she wondered what happened to the victim of the accident that opens the first chapter. Actually you do get a closing on his life and for my sister, Karen, "he will always live with his mother and he will always wander, that's the way it is." Maybe he will be Barbara Kingsolver's next main character (feel better?).
When you hear that "getting there is half the fun", you will think of this book and Turtle and Taylor's journey. Fun? Sometimes. Mostly the book is focused on a mother's love (not just Taylor's) and to what extremes a mother will go to make things right, sometimes at a cost. There were time in the story that I wanted to reach through the pages and shake some sense into Taylor. At first, nothing seemed fair but as the story unfolds, you see it as ending in only one way, the right way.
Enjoy!