The eagerly awaited new novel by Barbara Kingsolver offers another strong heroine, and a story about what the plight of the Monarch butterfly might tell us about our own destiny, and the future of the earth.
Dellarobia is already low on the totem pole of her husband’s family, as well as the entire local farming community in small-town Tennessee. When she happens upon a forested valley on her father-in-law’s land filled with silent red fire, she doesn’t understand the events past and present of which she is now the center.
The red fire turns out to be a multitude of butterflies, driven off-course by a series of weather-related events. Slowly, the community and Dellarobia herself learn what this miracle could mean for the fate of the earth. Meanwhile, Dellarobia comes to terms with the fire of her own life’s purpose, as the butterflies awaken her to the unbalance in her own life.