Flight Behavior

Flight Behaviour tackles one of the most divisive topics of the day: global warming. Kingsolver analyses the motivations behind denial and belief in a perilous society with a sophisticated and varied empathy.

The opening sequence in Flight Behaviour, in which a young woman's limited perspective of life is flung wide by a raging fire, captures the attention of viewers. Barbara Kingsolver uncovers the contemporary intricacies of rural life while exposing the deep, flawed humanity of her novel's characters in the poetic language of her home Appalachia. Here, the reader and characters are swiftly taken beyond known terrain into the tumultuous realms of science, religion, and daily ceasefires between conviction and reason.

Dellarobia Turnbow is a restless farm woman who, at seventeen, unintentionally fell pregnant and abandoned her own aspirations. She has now accepted her permanent disappointment after ten years of home strife on a failing farm, but she desperately wants to temporarily escape with an obsession with a younger guy. She sees a startling sight as she goes up a mountain road behind her home to a secret tryst: a quiet, wooded valley that seems to be a lake of fire. She can only interpret it as a miracle meant to serve as a warning, but scientists, religious authorities, and the media come up with a variety of different theories. Rural farmers make unexpected acquaintances with urbane journalists, opportunists, sightseers, and a stunning scientist who has a stake in the result due to the perplexing situation. In a quest for truth that has the power to destroy all she has ever believed in, Dellarobia faces her family, her church, her town, and the wider world as the community gathers to condemn the lady and her miracle.

Flight Behaviour tackles one of the most divisive topics of the day: global warming. Kingsolver analyses the motivations behind denial and belief in a perilous society with a sophisticated and varied empathy.