The Bean Trees: A Novel Barbara Kingsolver. 1989. G. K. Hall & Co., Boston, Massachusetts.

Book Review by Jane
Susan from the book club recommended this book. If you've actually spoken with people from rural Kentucky, then you can see how the main characters in this book actually resemble these very real and down to earth people. There are a few ways to go for someone born of these circumstances. But this girl plans to escape becoming a statistical Eastern Kentucky woman first by graduating high school, which some say is a feat in itself because of the high teenage pregnancy rates. Secondly, she would make a run for it--get a beat up car, change her name, and head nowhere in particular--just West, by herself. This may seem outlandish; however, this is Kentucky, and it could very well happen. If the reader doesn't know that to begin with, it will soon become clear, because this story is well written.

She meets some people along the way that offer her a chance that will completely change her young life. While she escaped the confines of pregnancy at a young age, she becomes a surrogate mother to a very young Native American child who has been harshly abused. She had barely anything to give this child in the way of comforts and necessities, but she manages to acquire means to care for her and for herself. She also is enveloped in a great support network of people when she finally settles in her new home in Arizona.

Barbara Kinsolver is a well known author, and this is her first novel.