About the Author

Barbara Kingsolver is the author of ten bestselling works of fiction, including the novels Unsheltered, The Bean Trees, and The Poisonwood Bible, as well as books of poetry, essays, creative nonfiction, and Coyote's Wild Home, a children's book co-authored with Lily Kingsolver. She also collaborated with family members on the influential Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life. Kingsolver's work has been translated into more than thirty languages and has earned a devoted readership at home and abroad. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and has received numerous awards and honors including the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her novel, Demon Copperhead, the National Humanities Medal, and most recently, the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters and its Lifetime Achievement Award. She lives with her husband on a farm in southern Appalachia.

Reviews

"Drawing on both her Appalachian roots and her background in biology, Kingsolver delivers a passionate novel on the effects of global warming." -- Booklist (starred review)"With her powerful new novel, Kingsolver delivers literary fiction that conveys an urgent social message... a clarion call about climate change, too lucid and vivid for even skeptics to ignore." -- Publishers Weekly, Starred Review"Enthralling...Dellarobia is appealingly complex as a smart, curious, warmhearted woman desperate to-no resisting the metaphor here-trade her cocoon for wings." -- O, the Oprah Magazine"A dazzling page-turner" -- Elle"Kingsolver has written one of the more thoughtful novels about the scientific, financial and psychological intricacies of climate change. And her ability to put these silent, breathtakingly beautiful butterflies at the center of this calamitous and noisy debate is nothing short of brilliant." -- Washington Post"The novel really soars in the exquisitely drawn scenes where a strapped woman feels claustrophobic in a dollar store or panicked during a job interview or wistful for her bright young son's future. Dellarobia is a smart, fierce, messy woman, and one can't help rooting for her to find her wings." -- Entertainment Weekly"Dellarobia is appealingly complex as a smart, curious, warmhearted woman desperate to-no resisting the metaphor here-trade her cocoon for wings." -- O, the Oprah Magazine"One of the gifts of a Kingsolver novel is the resplendence of her prose. She takes palpable pleasure in the craft of writing, creating images that stay with the reader long after her story is done...(a) majestic and brave new novel." -- New York Times Book Review"An intricate story that entwines considerations of faith and faithlessness, inquiry, denial, fear and survival in gorgeously conceived metaphor. Kingsolver has constructed a deeply affecting microcosm of a phenomenon that is manifesting in many different tragic ways, in communities and ecosystems all around the globe. This is a fine and complex novel." -- Seattle Times"So captivating is this grand, suspenseful plot and the many subplots rising and falling beneath it that it takes some time before we realize what this story is really about --climate change." -- Minneapolis Star Tribune"Spirituality, a troubled marriage, global warming...Kingsolver's latest is a bold mélange, but it works." -- People"Kingsolver is a storyteller first and foremost, as sensitive to human interactions and family dynamics as she is to ecological ones." -- NPR"A delicate symbiosis between the sacred and the scientific in this richly rewarding novel that will both entertain and incite its readers." -- BookPage"FLIGHT BEHAVIOR is a book worth reading twice? first for the intricacies of character, second for the dense, beautiful language Kingsolver puts on the page. She's a keen observer of the messiness and unexpected beauty of the quotidian." -- Cleveland Plain Dealer"By the end of FLIGHT BEHAVIOR, it's clear that Kingsolver's passionate voice and her ability to portray the fragility of the natural world, and why we should care about it, are as strong as ever." -- San Francisco Chronicle"Novelists like Kingsolver have a particular knack for making us empathize with lives that may bear little resemblance to our own...What lifts FLIGHT BEHAVIOR...is not just Kingsolver's nuanced and funny prose; it's Dellarobia's awakening to the possibilities around her." -- Julia Ingalls, Salon"A terrifically entertaining read about a spirited young woman you'll miss the minute you reach the last page." -- USA Today"Marvelous...This is fiction rich in empathy, wit and science. Like the butterflies that astonish Feathertown, Kingsolvian gifts are 'fierce and wondrous, ' 'colors moving around like fire.'" -- New York Times"[Kingsolver's] keen grasp of delicate ecosystems-both social and natural-keeps the story convincing and compelling." -- The New Yorker

Dellarobia Turnbow is an Appalachian farm wife trapped in a loveless marriage. Her life changes when, inexplicably, thousands of orange monarch butterflies descend on the family's woodland. Some townspeople see it as a sign from God; others take advantage of the phenomenon to make money when it becomes a tourist attraction. But the arrival of a butterfly scientist opens Dellarobia's eyes to the frightening implications of climate change-and, at the same time, gives her the courage to escape the confines of her own life. Kingsolver proves an excellent reader of her own work, perfectly conveying both Dellarobia's gossipy, accented smalltown neighbors and the distinctive Jamaican accent of intellectual Ovid, the butterfly scientist. Perhaps most impressive is her narration of Ovid's explanations of the phenomenon: descriptions of monarch butterfly migration patterns and the impact of climate change could have been dry, but Kingsolver's voice is full of the character's passion, which keeps listeners engaged. The author also ably conveys Dellarobia's yearnings and her struggle to deal with the conflict between her home life and her dreams. This is a beautifully realized audio version of a compelling and fascinating novel. A Harper hardcover. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

As Kingsolver states in the afterword to this book, one of the most special moments in her life was being declared a scientist, a title that she bestows on young Preston, the son of Dellaroba Turnbow, in her newest novel. The discovery of what Dellaroba describes as a lake of fire in the forest behind her Appalachian farmhouse turns out to be a mysterious sea of monarch butterflies. Kingsolver has discussed ecological concerns in previous works and here presents a startling and plausible fictive backdrop to discuss the affects of climate change on these insects. She balances the fictional and scientific characters with her usual skill and performs the audio version with a true feel for the characters and their sense of the butterflies. VERDICT Highly recommended as a timely and informative book on a significant current issue. ["Kingsolver draws upon her prodigious knowledge of the natural world to enlighten readers about the intricacies of the migration patterns of monarch butterflies while linking their behavior to the even more fascinating conduct of the human species. Highly recommended," read the review of the HarperCollins hc, LJ 8/12.-Ed.]-Joyce Kessel, Villa Maria Coll., Buffalo (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.