Unsheltered

Unsheltered is a 2018 novel by Barbara Kingsolver. It follows two families living in the same house at two separate time periods in Vineland, New Jersey. The novel alternates between the 21st- and 19th-century stories, using the last words of one chapter as the title of the next one.[1] One family lived in the house in the 1800s and one is there in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.

Unsheltered
AuthorBarbara Kingsolver
CountryUnited States
LanguageAmerican English
GenreNovel
PublisherHarperCollins
Publication date
2018
Pages464
ISBN978-0-06-268456-1
OCLC1019922367
Preceded byFlight Behavior 



Major characters

21st century:

  • Willa Knox - journalist
  • Iano Tavoularis - PhD in anthropology, her husband
  • Tig (Antigone) - Willa and Iano's daughter
  • Zeke - Willa and Iano's son
  • Nick - Iano's irascible father
  • Dixie - the dog
  • Helene - Zeke's wife, who committed suicide
  • Aldus (Dusty) - Zeke and Helena's infant son
  • Athena, Lita, and Irini - Nick's sisters
  • Christopher Hawk - museum Curator
  • Jorge - Neighbor boy, Tig's boyfriend

19th century (some modelled on real persons):

  • Thatcher Greenwood - BS in Biology
  • Rose - his wife
  • Mary Treat - neighbor (real-life naturalist, botanist, entomologist); next-door neighbor
  • Polly - Rose's sister
  • Aurelia - Rose's mother
  • Captain Charles K. Landis - Vinland's founder, mayor and land agent
  • Professor Cutler - principal of school where Thatcher teaches; toady to Landis
  • Uri Carruth - editor of rival paper


Reception and awards

Writing in the New York Times, Meg Wolitzer, says this book "lures us into" this story about a house and the two different families that occupy it during two different periods of time.[1] Ilana Masad states in her NPR review that by the end of the novel "Kingsolver doesn't give us solutions, but she reminds us to take comfort in one another when we can, and that hope is necessary even when all seems lost."[2]

References
  1. Wolitzer, Meg (2018-10-19). "In Barbara Kingsolver's New Book, a Family Teeters on the Brink". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-05-02.
  2. "Barbara Kingsolver Captures The Feeling Of Being 'Unsheltered'". NPR.org. Retrieved 2019-05-02.


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