Pigs in Heaven by Barbara Kingsolver

Alice has had it!  She married this man out of desperation with the belief and the hope that he was more than he really was.  She is gearing up to leave Kentucky and decides contacting her cousin, Sugar Marie, in Oklahoma may be a good idea.

Alice’s daughter, Taylor and Taylor’s adopted daughter, Turtle (a Cherokee child) unintentionally become celebrities when Turtle sees a man fall into a spillway at Hoover Dam and convinces her mom and (with some difficulty) the authorities to rescue him.  Because of the circumstances of Turtle’s adoption, their celebrity status creates huge problems for Taylor.  She contacts Alice and thus begins the story in Pigs in Heaven.

This book not only weaves a great tale, it provides some insight into the world of Native Americans.  Barbara Kingsolver is able to intertwine the lives of her characters so deftly that the reader can slide right by the connections with only a momentary, “Hey, I think I’ve seen that before.”  Her writing is rich in character development and description.  Reading her work is like wading into cool water on a scorching day.  It will grab your focus and envelope you so that you feel the love, frustration, fear and relief just as if you were living the story.

Ann Fisher is a mother of four, grandmother of 12, great-grandmother to one and one half.  She has been employed at NIACC for eleven years and has lived in the North Iowa area most of her life.  She loves reading and writing. She says when she grows up, she wants to write things that touch people deeply.