Flight Behavior is a novel with the urgent socio-political message of climate change. Its setting is an Appalachian sheep farm, and the barn inside it later serves as a scientific research laboratory.

The protagonist, Dellarobia Turnbow is a young sharp-witted mother of two children trapped in a loveless marriage and a dull husband. As she tries to escape from her situation, she stumbles on a curious phenomenon, a hillside covered with Monarch butterflies that probably escaped from Mexico due to Climate Change.

The sheep farm is also in the same danger as the hills of Mexico, the Monarch's original home, because Dellarobia's father-in-law has signed a contract with a logging company to have the hills surrounding the farm cut bare.

Enter Ovid Byron the entomologist whose specialty and life work is the Monarch Butterflies. He rents the barn from the Turnbows to fashion it into a laboratory and hires Dellarobia as his lab assistant.

To tell more of the story would be giving it away. Suffice it to say that its message is strong and the traditional images of Death, Heaven, Hell, and sacrificial lambs stress the impact of Climate Change.

Some might think of this novel, especially Ovid's lengthy explanations of the Ecology terms and scientific facts, as didactic and preachy. Yes, they sometimes take a bit long, but that didn't bother me at all. Quite the contrary, I envied the writer for her extensive research, even if she already had a science background.

understanding the importance of science, Climate, Change, the animal world, and appreciating the self-exploration of the protagonist.

how, at the end of the novel, the protagonist's future is determined. In addition, all the characters in the book are meticulously developed.

Barbara Kingsolver was born in 1955 and grew up in Kentucky, earning degrees in biology. She has worked a freelance writer and author.
Her books are: The Bean Trees, Homeland, Holding the Line: Women inthe Great Arizona Mine Strike, Animal Dreams, Another America, pigs in Heaven, Jigh Tide in Tucson, The Poisonwood Bible, Prodigal Summer, Small Wonder, Last Stand: America's Virgin Lands, Belt, The Lacuna, and Flight Behavior

it has a valid message and it's written very well. Also, it can serve as a model in plotting if read with an eye for it. Despite all the science in it, it is not boring at all.

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Created May 07, 2013 at 7:49pm • Submit your own review...