DNF

The first quarter of the book was tough to get into - but since this was for a book club, I had to keep going. After about the halfway mark, I started to enjoy it. I must say, I'm not really sure WHY the change occurred, just that it did... ( )

I love Barbara Kingsolver and her books, but this one missed the mark for me. I was also not crazy about her narration style. ( )

The book follows a year in the life of two families living at the same address in Vineland, NJ over a 100 years apart. The historical family drama is set in 1875/6 and covers issues similar to the Scopes trial dealing with Darwin's ideas. The modern family set in 2015/6 is suffering from a life of doing what is thought to be right but ending up on the brink of destitution. Kingsolver's ideals on the environment and democracy are front and center, debated by all the characters and a bit preachy at times. I enjoyed aspects of both time periods, but was put off by others. Not her best. ( )

Like [b:Perfidious Albion|37564159|Perfidious Albion|Sam Byers|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1528633924s/37564159.jpg|59177083], ‘Unsheltered’ is a zeitgeist novel. It concerns two families living in the same collapsing house, 150 years apart. In 1871, Thatcher Greenwood attempts to teach the theory of evolution while local authorities deny it; in 2016, Willa Knox struggles to survive family tragedies and financial ruin during the rise of Trump. The historical analogy is not subtle at all, but that seems appropriate given there is nothing remotely subtle about the present moment. While the whole novel is pervaded by collapse, disaster, and struggle, Kingsolver argues for the consolations of curiosity, community, and solidarity. Her writing is as clear and compelling as ever and her grasp of generational differences particularly acute.

While reading ‘Unsheltered’, I kept thinking of what a striking contrast it makes with Lionel Shriver’s [b:The Mandibles: A Family, 2029–2047|27064345|The Mandibles A Family, 2029–2047|Lionel Shriver|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1461532661s/27064345.jpg|46892513]. Both are narratives of a middle class white American family shocked to find themselves financially insecure in a collapsing US economy, forced into intergenerational cohabitation for survival. They read like right- and left-wing responses to the same socioeconomic stimuli, yet their contrasts emphasise the alarming magical thinking that has overtaken the American right. The Mandible family survive through withdrawal into paranoid survivalism; in their world the US survives by fragmenting into libertarian flat-tax states. Shriver’s novel sells the naive and dangerous right-wing idea that you can tear down the economy and society in order to start again with something simpler, harking back to a prelapsarian past. It ignores all countries outside the US, all environmental problems, all racial problems, and the vast majority of US history. It focuses on a family because this is presented as the only social unit that matters. Anyone outside the family is a competitor.

Kingsolver’s Knox family also band together because they can’t afford not to, but their narrative unfolds very differently. Willa Knox learns to let go of the American Dream that she was sold, in favour of simpler aspirations. She makes new connections within and beyond her family, discovering the power of friendship networks. In ‘Unsheltered’, [spoiler] the collapsing house is eventually pulled down. Rather than rebuilding the same flawed structure in its place, though, the materials are recycled elsewhere into new forms. This the crux of why Kingsolver’s perspective is one of realism while Shriver’s is fantasy: the former admits the need for the US to work with what it has, while the latter assumes it can start again completely from scratch. ‘Unsheltered’ includes many conversations about why the US can’t keep wasting resources and ignoring the destabilising climate; [b:The Mandibles: A Family, 2029–2047|27064345|The Mandibles A Family, 2029–2047|Lionel Shriver|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1461532661s/27064345.jpg|46892513] wishes away climate change. Kingsolver's 19th century narrative thread powerfully reinforces the dangers of ignoring science in favour of dogmatic, authoritarian faith. Shriver, by contrast, sets her novel in the future and bludgeons the reader with neoliberal economics.

Needless to say, I much preferred Kingsolver’s novel. Nonetheless, I enjoyed it more for having Shriver’s to compare it to. The two say more together than apart, I feel. While both include interesting characters, they all exist largely as mouthpieces. The politics are the point. That isn’t a bad thing, indeed it’s rather refreshing to find fiction deliberately and thoughtfully digesting the seeming madness of contemporary politics. Unsurprisingly, my favourite character was Tig: the petite anti-capitalist determined to open her parents eyes. She’s the kind of person I’d like to be if I were much more of an extrovert. Willa was an excellent choice for point of view character, though.

Where Kingsolver and Shriver’s novels converge is the absence of interest within their respective families of taking political action. While the Knoxes involve themselves in their community, they barely mention voting, let alone protesting etc. The Mandibles obviously don’t believe in politics, only the great god Free Market. Perhaps this remains a taboo of American literary fiction? The family drama is an acceptable frame for a literary novel, but the possibility of wider social action for change limits itself to genre fiction. Mostly YA, sci-fi, and/or fantasy, as far as I can tell. The best recent example is Kim Stanley Robinson's [b:New York 2140|29570143|New York 2140|Kim Stanley Robinson|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1471618737s/29570143.jpg|49898123].

Perhaps I’m inferring too much from two novels, both of which I found interesting yet depressing. For differing reasons, though. Shriver’s dystopia because naive libertarianism is a lot better than anything we can actually expect in a climate changed world; Kingsolver’s because it is clear-eyed about the world in 2016 yet cannot look any further beyond a single family than Shiver does. I wouldn’t expect Kingsolver to solve all America’s problems in a single novel, of course. It struck me, though, that [b:Perfidious Albion|37564159|Perfidious Albion|Sam Byers|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1528633924s/37564159.jpg|59177083] took a much wider analytical perspective on Brexit by limiting itself geographically to a single town. By isolating her narrative to a single house, Kingsolver prioritises family emotions over insight into the wider situation. The house-as-America is less effective than the town-as-England, perhaps inevitably. That said, ‘Unsheltered’ contains many moments that are both moving and insightful. Hopefully 21st century novelists are starting to collectively rediscover the 19th century mode of using sprawling family melodrama to analyse contemporary social problems. The key word is ‘sprawling’. The topic of middle class marriage has been written to death, so I think it’s time for casts of characters that extend beyond a single family. ( )