Nancy Merbitz

The Guardian’s review misses much of the subtlety of this book and these characters. The main character, Dellarobia, never snarls at anybody, contrary to the reviewer’s ham-handed summary. Likewise, the shopping scenes are not overkill, but a small sample of her regular experiences and a piercing indictment of the cheap products made by slave laborers, with the corporate race to the bottom. Kingsolver depicts this with simple details, never polemics. She invites us to live the lives of people making their way between the footprints of our greedy overlords. I’m being polemical, but Kingsolver, more skillful than I could ever dream of, simply shows us and leaves us to our own thoughts. And much of the book is beautiful, and sometimes funny, and always real.