UNSHELTERED by Barbara Kingsolver

I liked the message in this novel, or, I should say, messages.  The author addresses several topics, including global warming, wasting natural resources, and the dissolution of the middle class.  Willa and her husband Iano are in their fifties but have not been able to accumulate a nest egg, partly due to Iano’s failed attempts at securing tenure and partly due to a stream of calamities.  They move to an inherited home in Vineland, NJ, which begins to crumble around them.  Their grown daughter has just moved back in, and their son Zeke’s girlfriend has just committed suicide shortly after the birth of their son Aldus.  Aldus then joins Willa and Iano’s household, which also includes Iano’s dying father, who mouths off racial slurs while draining their meager funds for his medical care.  Their story alternates with that of Thatcher Greenwood, a fictional 1870s science teacher who befriends Mary Treat, a real-life naturalist who corresponded with Charles Darwin.  Greenwood becomes something of a pariah in town, due to his embracing of Darwin’s findings, much to the chagrin of his social-climbing wife.  Greenwood’s house is also disintegrating, so that the book title has a literal meaning for both the modern-day household and the 1870s one.   The most chilling parallel that Kingsolver draws between the two storylines is the similarity between our current president and Charles Landis, founder of Vineland and a real-life contemporary of Mary Treat.  Some may find the author a little too preachy in this novel, but I have a different beef.  I felt that both storylines lacked any real punch.  Even the murder that occurs has a foregone conclusion and therefore is not that shocking.  Willa and Iano’s problems never seem to have any reprieve.  The addition of an infant to their household may be uplifting in some ways, but he adds to their already towering stress levels.  Kingsolver never leaves her messes unresolved, and this novel is no exception, but I couldn’t help feeling that the ensuing and inevitable resolution, in both storylines, was an unnecessarily long time coming.