Second Sharing: Review of Barbara Kingsolver’s THE BEAN TREES

Posted on October 1, 2020 by Leslie Schultz

As of 2020, Barbara Kingsolver has published fifteen books. The Bean Trees, her first novel, was published in 1988, and slowly (through word of mouth by readers, librarians, and bookseller) garnered positive reviews, robust sales, and, eventually, a secure place on English class syllabi.

I was completely wowed by this book when I read it in 1989. If I recall correctly, it was legendary bookseller Barbara Bonner who told me I had to read it, and, as usual, she was quite correct in her taste, judgment, and urgency. The well-worn hard-cover copy you see here is my own.

Here is that review from thirty years ago:

BOOKMARK (Published in The Northfield News in 1990)

by Leslie Schultz

The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver, Harper & Row, $7.95

This is part of the discovery made by Taylor Greer, a young woman from Pittman, Kentucky who confesses mortal fear of only two things in life–tires and motherhood. Her fear of tires stems from witnessing a man blown sky-high when a tractor tire exploded. Her fear of motherhood seems a natural reaction to Pittman County, where more high school girls gestate than graduate.

When a baby trusts you, it gives you the strength to fight the whole world if you have to–even if that baby is mysteriously thrust into your arms one dark night as you are driving off to find freedom for yourself.

The Bean Trees, a first novel by Barbara Kingsolver, opens with distinct echoes of some of the last decade’s most interesting new novelists: Carolyn Chute, Olive Ann Burns, and, especially, Bobbie Ann Mason. By the end of the first chapter, however, the echoes die away, and self-named Taylor Greer emerges–determined, mouthy, and itching to get out of her hometown.

Taylor makes her getaway in the hull of a ’55 VW Beetle, a barely driveable relict with no windows or starter. This vehicle serves as more than transportation; the scrappy VW helps to baptize her for her new life by running out of gas in Taylor, Illinois; by engineering her pivotal, lifechanging stop on a Cherokee reservation in Oklahoma; and by blowing its bald tires mere blocks from her providential stop at the Jesus Is Lord Used Tires store in Tucson.

The Bean Trees chronicles a year in which Taylor’s life becomes entwined with those who can help her and those who need her strength: Mattie, the proprietor of Jesus Is Lord, who runs a sanctuary for Latin American refugees upstairs; Lou Ann, a deserted new mother who imagines dismemberment and salmonella poisoning at every turn; Estevan and Esperanza, two political refugees from Guatemala who have been scarred in ways that cannot be seen; and Turtle, the Cherokee baby girl whose months of silence break when she learns to name vegetables.

This novel is about great damage and great healing. From a rich mix colloquial language, off-beat characters, and an imaginative plot, a central theme of hope in the face of justified despair is skillfully developed. Looking at Turtle’s x-rays through the light of the pediatrician’s window, where the evidence of multiple fractures says what the child cannot, Taylor finds herself looking “through the bones to the garden on the other side.” Just as the desert miraculously blooms after spring rain, this novel unfolds like a flower in the reader’s hand, charming and teaching at the same time.

I have gone on to read and admire and often love other works by Kingsolver. Certainly she is a consummate storyteller and an inspiring environmentalist who truly believes, as I do, that works of literature hold the potential to make the world a better place by enlarging the vision and touching the hearts of readers.

Just as certainly, Kingsolver would never have known of my small-town paper review back in 1990 of her first book, but it is still the work of hers that I love the most. This winter, I am looking forward to the pleasure of reading it again. Maybe I will revisit Bobbie Ann Mason, Carolyn Chute, and Olive Ann Burns, too. Maybe Elsa Lefland, too. I have been wanting to reread Rumors of Peace. And then, perhaps, more of Kingsolver’s later work. There are many happy hours of reading there, as a glance at her website makes clear, and I need to shore up my sense of hope just now.

Are there works from your own reading past–poems, essays, short stories, or novels– that are calling to you now? If so, I would like to know what they are and why you think this is the time to reread them.

Happy autumn reading! Leslie

(Please note: the image above of the purple beans is by rguadet17 and is used by permission via the photo site Pixabay.

Naugatuck River Review Publishes My Poem “The Widow Orders a Mai-Tai at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel”

Posted on September 30, 2020 by Leslie Schultz

I was so happy when Naugatuck River Review accepted my poem “The Widow Orders a Mai-Tai at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel.” This journal specializes in narrative poetry. Their website defines their sense of what makes a “narrative poem.” They seek “poems that tell a story, or have a strong sense of story” within a compressed set of lines. They also seek a “strong emotional core and rich language.” In this issue, a collection of sixty poems by sixty diverse poets, this is, indeed, what I discovered. I was especially moved by–and inspired by–a Shakespearean sonnet called “Why I like metal detecting” by Di Slaney, a British poet, who creates a strong narrator within fourteen lines and uses the traditional turn to stunning effect. On the facing page, the poem by Geo. Staley of Portland, Oregon, called “Banking at 6 and 7”, was not in a conventional form, but it, too, used the last twenty syllables or so to invert expectations, and, in the case of this reader, caused tears of the best kind. Do take a look at this magazine, now in its 13th year, (copies can be ordered through the link above) if you are looking for a short poem with real narrative punch.

The majority of my work in poetry arises from my lived experience. Perhaps I could say it comes from the stories I tell about my own life, my own thoughts about the world. “The Widow Orders a Mai-Tai at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel”, however, (and the series it is part of) are pure fiction, with a central character who sprang full-blown onto the page. The only point of contact between life and art is that I did spend a memorable morning eating breakfast on the verandah of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel–a real-life location from the Roaring Twenties–on Waikiki Beach. I was happy to be there, not as a widow, but in the company of my husband, Tim.

This issue of Naugatuck River Review has helped me understand, in the most pleasurable way, what narrative poetry is and does (and clearly, it does not have to be fiction, as it happened to be in my case, to be a narrative!)

Happy reading and writing! Leslie

Third Wednesday Magazine Publishes “Memorial Day 2020”– My Sonnet in Honor of Corrine Heiberg

Posted on September 29, 2020 by Leslie Schultz

My dear friend and neighbor, Corrine Heiberg, died three years ago this month. Many times every day I think of my friend, Corrine, of her husband, Elvin, and of all the kindness, laughter, and sharing they brought, and still bring, to our lives.

This month, Third Wednesday Magazine, a journal that has enriched my life as a reader, subscriber, and contributor, has published a sonnet I wrote this year for Corrine. Just yesterday, I learned the magazine has honored it by making it poem of the week on their website.

While in the years since Corrine’s death, Elvin and I have often taken a drive to the serene and nearby Oaklawn Cemetery to visit Corrine’s grave, and to visit the family graves of the Heibergs and the Hulbergs (Elvin’s mother’s family), I realized this year that I had never taken flowers to any grave on Memorial Day. With so many moves in my life, I have perhaps never been in the same city as the final resting place of a deceased relative.

This year, with so many gorgeous flowers in our garden, and frustrated because Elvin and I could not take our uses drives or even visit for armchair travel with slide shows in his apartment due to the Covid-19 pandemic, I thought that at least I could take flowers to Corrine on Memorial Day. Elvin supported the idea, and so I made some bouquets (pictured below). Later, I made this sonnet.

Below are some photographs take that day last May. (Frederick Heiberg and Beulah Hulberg were Elvin’s parents. Grace Whittier was his godmother.)