AudioFile Reviews

Playing with layered meanings of shelter, author, and, here, narrator, Barbara Kingsolver weaves the stories of two families tied to the same house in Vineland, New Jersey, across two centuries. In the present day, Willa copes with the aftermath of the unexpected loss of her daughter-in-law, adding additional burden to a family barely getting by. In the late nineteenth century, Thatcher returns to his wife's ancestral homeland for a teaching position. Each family struggles to rise above the economic and psychological barriers of its time. The parallels are striking, often dispiriting. Marred at the outset by a background echo, Kingsolver's performance is imperfect and uneven, though still worthwhile. Her warm, lightly accented voice with its natural emotional pull is effectively applied in her performances of the female characters. A.S. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

Library Journal Reviews

With the magazine where she worked and the college where her husband taught both shuttered, Willa Knox starts researching their tumbledown house's history, hoping to interest the local preservation society in some much-needed repairs. Then she discovers that a previous owner's battles parallel her own. With a 500,000-copy first printing and a ten-city tour.

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