From her outpost in an isolated mountain cabin, Deanna Wolfe, a reclusive wildli
fe biologist, watches a den of coyotes that have recently migrated into the regi
on. She is caught off guard by a young hunter who invades her most private space
s and confounds her self-assured, solitary life. On a farm several miles down th
e mountain, Lusa Maluf Landowski, a bookish city girl turned farmer's wife, find
s herself unexpectedly marooned in a strange place where she must declare or los
e her attachment to the land that has become her own.
And a few more miles do
wn the road, a pair of elderly feuding neighbours tend their respective farms an
d wrangle about God, pesticides, and the possibilities of a future neither of th
em expected. Over the course of one humid summer, these characters find their co
nnections to one another and to the flora and fauna with whom they share a place
. "Prodigal Summer" demonstrates a balance of narrative, drama and ideas that is
characteristic of Barbara Kingsolver's finest work.
