Red Room Where the Writers Are

Issue/Publication: Painted Moon Review

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Around 1993 everyone I knew was recommending Barbara Kingsolver to me. "Oh, Jen, you'll just love her. She's so funny and her characters are so great and her writing is like poetry and she's the best thing since sliced bread." Well, maybe the latter isn't true, but that's what it felt like.

So I broke down and read The Bean Trees. Three days later I went and simply bought every Barbara Kingsolver book in print at the time. I hadn't read a writer that I completely enjoyed in years-a writer that could be very funny, have sweet characters that you fell in love with, and also have issues to think about for a long time. How American Indians are treated in this country. Nicaragua in the late 80's, and our funding for the Contras back then. Congo in the early sixties. Being a single mother. Living paycheck to paycheck. And trying most of all, to try change the world, bit by bit, little by little.

So it comes to no surprise that Ms. Kingsolver comes out in full force in her new book of essays, Small Wonder. Small Wonder began on September 12, 2001, when Ms. Kingsolver was asked to write editorials about what happened the day before. In her clear honest way, Kingsolver wrote about what happened, bringing a hailstorm of anger and finger pointing that she was not patriotic and un-American. How dare she say bad things about our country when we just went through hell and back? What was forgotten was what made this country great: Our country's history that you can say what you believe in, that elemental right of free speech.

Small Wonder has the controversial essays in question. In the essay "Flying", Ms. Kingsolver talks about the people who lost their lives on that fateful day, but also speaks about how for many countries around the world, what happened to us is nothing new under the sun:

This time it was us, leaving us trembling, leading my little daughter to ask quietly, "Will it happen to me, Mama?" I understood with the deepest sadness I've ever known that this was the wrong question to ask, and it has had been. It has always been happening to us-in Nicaragua, in the Sudan, in Hiroshima, that night in Baghdad-and now we finally know what it feels like. Now we may learn, from the taste of own blood, that every war is both won and lost, and that loss is a pure, high note of anguish like a mother to a empty bed.

Now when I first read this, I wanted to debate her. I wanted to say: "Damnit, don't tell us this now! We can't bear to hear it!" But deep down, I know that she is right. It reminds me of that old quote of Anne Lamott's: "One hundred years? All new people." Now it is our turn to feel the aftershocks of feeling invaded. And eight months later, it still stings.

In another essay about Sept. 11th called "And Our Flag was still there", Kingsolver explores her feelings about the sudden flag waving following that fateful day, and how it affects her family:

My daughter came home from kindergarten and announced, "Tomorrow we all have to wear red, white and blue."
"Why?" I asked, trying not to sound wary.
"For all the people that died when the airplanes hit the buildings."
I fear the sound of saber rattling, dread that not just my taxes but even my children are being dragged to the cause of death in the wake of death. I asked quietly, "Why not wear black, then? Why the colors of the flag, what does that mean?"
"It means we're a country. Just all people together."
… we sent her to school in red, white and blue, because it felt to her like something she could do to help people who are hurting. And because my wise husband put a hand on my arm and said, "You can't let hateful people steal the flag from us."

Kingsolver later illustrates in the essay that she loves the flag, loves what it stands for, but she gets angry when the flag is used for violence, for ignorance.

But not all the essays talk about Sept. 11th. There are essays about biology that she wrote with her husband Steven Hopp, about extinction of species, the lack of wild spaces children can explore. A essay exploring why she doesn't watch commercial television. A demise of a favorite independent bookstore near hear home. Her daughter raising chickens, which leads to this section:

Globally speaking, I belong to the 20 percent of the world's population-and chances are, you do, too, that uses 67 percent of the planet's resources and generates 75 percent of its pollution and waste. This doesn't make me proud.

She then describes how she grows her own vegetables and orders from Co-ops rather than supermarkets, then encourages people to shop at farmer's markets and grow their own food, and laments about how much is gone to waste.

Well, I have to admit this. By then, I just wanted to say to her: "Barb! Listen to me! I recycle, I use bottles over and over again, but I like going to my supermarket! I don't have enough money to order from Co-Ops! I try not to waste food! I'm trying to watch less TV, but I like TV! And okay, yes, I buy books from Borders! But honest to God, Borders is always a last resort!"

Then I realized: It's okay. It's okay not to always agree with a writer you love. It doesn't mean you love her writing any less, you just agree to disagree on some issues. Kind of like a family member, and it also means that you can change your life in small ways: Since I read Small Wonder I have been speaking out more about my conflicted feelings about the war on terrorism. I've been shopping at a small local store for my fruits and vegetables that is locally owned. I've been resisting Borders to go to my good old trusty Independent bookstores.

The essays in Small Wonder are quiet, beautifully written meditations on what it's like to live in America: to be a wife, a mother, a writer, and most of all, a human being. I may not agree with everything Barbara Kingsolver says, but by God, I'm glad she's around to say it, in her quiet firm, way.