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The Poisonwood Bible

Kingsolver, one of Kentucky's most prominent authors, explores the issues of cultural conflict and hierarchism in this lengthy and complex book. I say complex not because it explores the issues in a particularly complex manner, but rather because of the three narrators who tell the story in first person narrative. Three sisters, daughters of a radically devout evangelical minister, accompany their father, mother, and youngest sister to the Congo in the 1960s (perhaps it wasn't Congo, yet, but I can't recall which of its many names it bore at the start) to be missionaries. The tyrannical father, a conservative man whom Kingsolver villainizes with no attempt at subtlety, is the indirect driving force of the novel. It is his cultural insensitivities and atrocities that shapes the girls’ psychologies and ultimately their futures. His presence in the novel is felt long after he is absent from it (the novel takes place over many years), as each daughter makes choices based upon their past. In doing so, Kingsolver gives him great power; he is the figure against whom every major character reacts, and they are all defined by their reaction against him. For example, there is the idolizing daughter who later rebels utterly against his dogma; there is the daughter who thinks little of the missionary work, focusing all her energy on getting home to the prom dance and who craves the life of luxury in a despondent country; and then there is the daughter who one can imagine is Kingsolver herself and who is the cynical voice of reason throughout. Through the eyes of these three young women, we catch a glimpse of a nation thrown into political and social disorder, and we see with equal pity and hatred a man whose life and mind is focused on his divine mission of changing the “pagan and evil” society of “dark Africa.” An interest study of the various responses toward missionary work in foreign nations, this book drags at points (it is about 100 pages too long) but is well worth the read.

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