Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Pigs in Heaven: Novel, A
    Unavailable
    Pigs in Heaven: Novel, A
    Unavailable
    Pigs in Heaven: Novel, A
    Ebook499 pages9 hours

    Pigs in Heaven: Novel, A

    By Barbara Kingsolver

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    Listen to the audiobook instead

    About this ebook

    Picking up where her modern classic The Bean Trees left off, Barbara Kingsolver’s bestselling Pigs in Heaven continues the tale of Turtle and Taylor Greer, a Native American girl and her adoptive mother who have settled in Tucson, Arizona, as they both try to overcome their difficult pasts.

    Taking place three years after The Bean Trees, Taylor is now dating a musician named Jax and has officially adopted Turtle. But when a lawyer for the Cherokee Nation begins to investigate the adoption—their new life together begins to crumble.

    Depicting the clash between fierce family love and tribal law, poverty and means, abandonment and belonging, Pigs in Heaven is a morally wrenching, gently humorous work of fiction that speaks equally to the head and the heart.

    This edition includes a P.S. section with additional insights from Barbara Kingsolver, background material, suggestions for further reading, and more.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateMar 17, 2009
    ISBN9780061842214
    Author

    Barbara Kingsolver

    Barbara Kingsolver was born in 1955 and grew up in rural Kentucky. She earned degrees in biology from DePauw University and the University of Arizona, and has worked as a freelance writer and author since 1985. At various times she has lived in England, France, and the Canary Islands, and has worked in Europe, Africa, Asia, Mexico, and South America. She spent two decades in Tucson, Arizona, before moving to southwestern Virginia where she currently resides. Her books, in order of publication, are: The Bean Trees (1988), Homeland (1989), Holding the Line: Women in the Great Arizona Mine Strike (1989), Animal Dreams (1990), Another America (1992), Pigs in Heaven (1993), High Tide in Tucson (1995), The Poisonwood Bible (1998), Prodigal Summer (2000), Small Wonder (2002), Last Stand: America’s Virgin Lands, with photographer Annie Griffiths (2002), Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life (2007), The Lacuna (2009), Flight Behavior (2012), Unsheltered (2018), How To Fly (In 10,000 Easy Lessons) (2020), Demon Copperhead (2022), and coauthored with Lily Kingsolver, Coyote's Wild Home (2023). She served as editor for Best American Short Stories 2001.  Kingsolver was named one the most important writers of the 20th Century by Writers Digest, and in 2023 won a Pulitzer Prize for her novel Demon Copperhead. In 2000 she received the National Humanities Medal, our country’s highest honor for service through the arts. Her books have been translated into more than thirty languages and have been adopted into the core curriculum in high schools and colleges throughout the nation. Critical acclaim for her work includes multiple awards from the American Booksellers Association and the American Library Association, a James Beard award, two-time Oprah Book Club selection, and the national book award of South Africa, among others. She was awarded Britain's prestigious Women's Prize for Fiction (formerly the Orange Prize) for both Demon Copperhead and The Lacuna, making Kingsolver the first author in the history of the prize to win it twice. In 2011, Kingsolver was awarded the Dayton Literary Peace Prize for the body of her work. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She has two daughters, Camille (born in 1987) and Lily (1996). She and her husband, Steven Hopp, live on a farm in southern Appalachia where they raise an extensive vegetable garden and Icelandic sheep. 

    Read more from Barbara Kingsolver

    Related to Pigs in Heaven

    Related ebooks

    Native American & Aboriginal Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Demon Copperhead By Barbara Kingsolver Review – Appalachian Saga In The Spirit Of Dickens

      Oct 16, 2022

      Last year in the US, opioids were involved in more than 80,000 overdose deaths, representing yet another hike in an epidemic that began in the mid-1990s and shows no signs of abating. Fury at the now well-documented role big pharma played in its crea

      2 min read

    • Article

      What Grief Tastes Like

      Apr 21, 2021

      What Grief Tastes Like
      5 min read

    • Article

      A Lost Prayer

      Feb 2, 2023

      A Lost Prayer
      10 min read

    • Article

      Left To Lose

      Jul 10, 2022

      Around the time she gives up her name, it starts to feel like this entire revolution isn’t worth it anymore. The world is probably lucky that Kelian—she still remembers Kelian, in spite of everything—is there to pick up the pieces, the way he always

      11 min read

    • Article

      Book Club

      Nov 9, 2023

      Book Club
      5 min read

    • Article

      Murder Most Fowl

      Mar 12, 2023

      Murder Most Fowl
      2 min read

    • Article

      Best Of The Best

      Oct 29, 2022

      Best Of The Best
      8 min read

    • Article

      Let’s Play Dead

      Mar 3, 2020

      There was a man, let’s call him Henry VIII. There was his wife, let’s call her Anne B. Let’s give them a castle and make it nice. Let’s give her many boy babies but make them dead. Let’s give him a fussy way of being. Let’s make her smart and sneaky,

      17 min read

    • Article

      Books To Read

      Mar 5, 2024

      Books To Read
      7 min read

    • Article

      Echoes

      Jun 22, 2022

      Echoes
      9 min read

    • Article

      The holiday HOME

      Jul 7, 2022

      The holiday HOME
      4 min read

    • Article

      Christmas Books Guide

      Nov 30, 2022

      This is Fiona McIntosh’s first novel set entirely in Australia. Her heroine, Fleur, is just eight when she is already helping her adoptive undertaker parents prepare bodies. Mother Mae knows their only daughter is capable of running the Port Adelaide

      10 min read

    • Article

      The Witch Finders

      Jul 16, 2020

      Beth pulled her cloak tightly around her. It was the very last day of October and the air was damp and chill. Dead autumn leaves lay in deep piles in the woods and smoke curled into the night air from her cottage. Not far to go now. She bent her head

      4 min read

    • Article

      Great Read

      Apr 18, 2024

      Great Read
      7 min read

    • Article

      Intarsia

      Feb 6, 2020

      Intarsia
      6 min read

    • Article

      Lost Children

      Aug 4, 2022

      Lost Children
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Only Rule

      Jul 13, 2020

      There is only one rule in polite English society, but it is iron clad. Of course, polite English society is a fiction. For one thing, its members are rarely polite. Politeness is for the middle classes rather than those who live off ancestral acres o

      5 min read

    • Article

      The Education of Mrs. R.

      Sep 6, 2022

      An adolescent shriek woke her. Cockerels, she thought, cockerels, with a wry twist to the word. She lay in the dark listening. There was no use in covering her head; the screaming still came through. The soloist was suddenly submerged in the chorus.

      13 min read

    • Article

      O Fortuna, Velut Luna

      Sep 15, 2018

      What is Miss Treece’s trouble, according to a popular notion? The man A has failed to show up. Arousing herself at the restaurant, she fixes her lipstick when her solo supper concludes and takes herself down the stairs situated behind the bar. There,

      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Pigs in Heaven

    4/5

    67 ratings37 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      In the first book of this short series, [The Bean Trees], Taylor Green has an abused Indian toddler unexpectedly thrust into her arms from the back of a car. It was a great story of making a family from those who don't share your blood, but I was constantly thinking “Wait a minute – adoptions don't happen this way – no way, no how.”In this sequel the child called Turtle, who is still only minimally verbal, insists that she has seen a man fall into a dangerous place. Taylor believes her, and persists with unbelieving authorities until she finally gets someone to listen. The man is rescued. The resultant publicity brings Turtle to national acclaim, including tribal social workers.It becomes a beautiful story of the conflict when an abused and neglected child, coming out of her shell and attached to her adoptive white Mom, is claimed by her tribe and members of her extended family.The characters are all well realized. We see the backstory and pain of individual tribal family members and the whole of a nation whose children were removed from them. How can there be any winners in this situation? Highly recommended.
    • 5/5
      Love Kingsolver!
    • 3/5
      Last year I really liked Kingsolver's "The Bean Trees" and have been looking forward to the followup, "Pigs in Heaven". I found myself just a little disappointed. Taylor and her adopted cherokee girl Turtle return, about 2 years after the events in the Bean Trees. We get a new cast of interesting characters including Taylor's mother Alice, one whose story we learn a little. Taylor's boyfriend Jax I liked a lot, but not with the way the story treated him. This book is quite a bit longer but it didn't engage me as much as the first. The majority of things revolving around the young Cherokee lawyer just didn't interest me. Her character put me off. There are a couple of seemingly unrelated people and story lines that come together towards the end. This is still a good read but it was missing that "something special" charm for me.
    • 4/5
      This is a story about the many dimensions of family and culture. Turtle Greer is the "adopted" daughter of Taylor Greer. She was abandoned to Taylor by an unknown woman in a parking lot. She had been abused as a toddler. Taylor went through a phony adoption process to give some measure of legal status to the three-year old girl, who is clearly a native American. Several years later, as the result of an incident that gave the child fleeting national exposure, an Indian lawyer from the Cherokee nation identifies the child as an Indian, most likely from the Cherokee tribe. Annawake Fourkiller, new out of law school, knows that the placement of the child with a white woman contravenes the law, which holds that Indian children cannot be adopted by white families without the consent of the tribe. (Annawake has had a painful family experience where her twin brother was whisked away for adoption and not seen again.) She finds out that the adoption was falsified, and, in any event, could not have been done legally without the tribe's consent. She makes inquiries of Taylor about this which causes Taylor, who has developed a deep motherly attachment to Turtle, to flee with the child to avoid the possibility she will have to give her up.Taylor's mother, Alice, from Kentucky, has a distant connection with the Cherokees in Oklahoma. Running from a loveless marriage she goes to the reservation to reconnect with her childhood cousin, Sugar Boss from Heaven, Oklahoma. There, she finds out about the lawyer's interest in locating Turtle and trys to come up with a solution. She discovers that by distant bloodline she is eligible for membership in the tribe.In the meantime, Taylor and the child have located to the northwest where she struggles to make ends meet. She has little contact with her family (a boyfriend and close friends) back in Arizona), not revealing to anyone where she and the child are living. It is clear that Kingsolver means to show that without the network of support that family provides, life is very lonely and difficult.Alice realizes that family and shared cultural identity are deeply held values among the Cherokees. She experiences how the Cherokees perceive themselves as a more than extended family and how young and old share ties and common rituals that bind them to each other. Interestingly, the poverty and ramshackle nature of the nation's circumstances on the reservation do not in the slightest way mar the strong ties the tribe's members hold for each other. She wants to protect Turtle and Taylor, but she shows some ambivalence about the countermanding imperative for tribal cohesion that underlies Annawake's intent to have the child returned to tribal custody. In contrast to the tribe's unity and mutual support in the midst of great poverty, Taylor's struggles to provide for Turtle are heightened by her isolation from family.There is a solution to the problem. Although a bit deus ex machina in nature, Kingsolver's climax involves matchmaking of Alice's cousin and acquaintances with a tribal member, Cash Stillman, who has recently returned from a self-imposed exile in Wyoming. Cash Stillman turns out to be the child's grandfather. With him in the picture, the tribal court is able to arrange joint custody so that the child can learn about her heritage while remaining with her mother. It's a tad of a stretch, but it works fine.What's important about this fine novel is its emphasis on the meanings of the family connections that define who we are. Taylor has a love for Turtle so strong that she flees her family and tries to protect the child, though struggling terribly to make a life for them in a strange city. (Note the contrasts from where she left, near Tucson, to where they end up -- the Pacific northwest. And, see how Taylor has had a very unconventional "family", really a sort of hippieish community, but nonetheless a family.) On the other side, the deep cultural roots of the Indians are plainly to be seen. The intertwinings of their shared society go way beyond common understood conceptions of an "extended" family.The book tells the history of the grossly misguided attempts of white society to eradicate Indian culture and how this is the impetus behind the late day efforts (and laws) to preserve their identity. There is the opportunity in the novel to remember the displacement of Cherokees from the southeast to "territory no one else wanted" via the infamous "Trail of Tears". Cash himself is a product of the notorious boarding schools of the 20th century which were aimed at "Americanizing" Indian youth. (To be honest we must call this, along with overt slaughter of the 19th century, genocidal in nature.) I've not yet been disappointed by Kingsolver -- The Poisonwood Bible, The Lacunae, and now Pigs in Heaven. As you start her novels you wonder "now where's she going with this?", but as you get further along you think, "oh, wow".
    • 4/5
      Better than I expected, but a light read chalk FULL of symbols and motifs. A good book for high school level students for that reason. About Taylor and her adopted daughter Turtle (a Cherokee) and Alice, Taylor's mother, and their search for meaningful family and connections. Good introduction to Cherokee traditions and history, too (though somewhat idealized). A quick but enjoyable read. Jax is my favourite character and I was disappointed he's not in the end of the book.
    • 3/5
      3.5 starsTaylor adopted a little Native girl, 3-year old Turtle, after Turtle was "dumped" on her by a stranger saying to take care of her. When Turtle is 6, something happens to bring the two of them into the limelight, and they are noticed by Annawake, a Cherokee lawyer who insists the adoption is illegal and sets out to bring Turtle back to the Cherokee Nation and to her roots. It was a bit slow at times, but whenever Taylor and Annawake interacted, I was riveted. But, there wasn't enough of that for me. I thought the ending was a little too nice and neat for me, very unrealistic, I thought. I liked some of the characters, well, particularly one: Taylor's boyfriend, Jax, who was quirky, but very likeable. Overall, it was still good, but I think it could have been better, although I don't know how I would have wanted it to end, but it just wasn't realistic enough for me.
    • 4/5
      I am always struck by how good Kingsolver is when I start one of her books. I don't know why I forget this in between. In all of Kingsolver's books that I have read she does a great job depicting women and women's community (something I am often impatient with but which rings absolutely true for me in her books), and in Pigs in Heaven the juggling of multiple character points of view and of multiple ways of seeing the world--and the way the reader is made to empathize with all of them--is particularly well done.
    • 5/5
      The sequel to the Bean Trees continues the story of Taylor and Turtle, but this book feels richer, more layered. It looks closely at a difficult issue still important in America today: Should we look the other way at cross-cultural adoption if the child will be cared for and loved? Does culture and etnicity matter more than love?
    • 4/5
      Ahh, Barbara Kingsolver. Like a cup of tea or a warm bath, you can just swim in her language and story.
    • 3/5
      I actually liked this book better than the first, The Bean Trees. Which was surprising because before I started it my mom had told me she didn't like the sequel as much as the original. Still, it certainly wasn't my favorite Kingsolver. I much prefer The Poisonwood Bible.
    • 4/5
      Read this ages ago, don't remember what it's about, but I remember loving it and it turned me on to Barbara Kingsolver (a wonderful thing). Maybe I'll have to go back and re-read it.
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed the book and really became attached to the characters, but I felt like it was quite slow-moving for the middle section. There wasn't anything in particular that could have been left out, but at one point I felt like I'd read about 75 pages and nothing had really happened. If you haven't read any Kingsolver, I would start with The Poisonwood Bible, instead.
    • 5/5
      The continuing story of Taylor and Turtle involves new and previously known characters. If you were missing them, you get to know them better, as well as learn more about the connection between Taylor and Turtle.
    • 3/5
      This is the sequel to [The Bean Trees]. It's really not absolutely necessary to read the two books in order, but it is recommended. This is more contrived, I think ... good intentions always triumph over bad reality. But Kingsolver is a talented writer and a good story-teller.
    • 2/5
      A bit predictable, but good characters.
    • 4/5
      The Turtle books are some of the sweetest. They pull at your heart strings and really draw you in. Kingsolver has a way with different cultures and sheding light on the customs and people so that even the simplist of people can understand what both sides are trying to bring to the table.
    • 4/5
      I found this book fun to read with a host of memorable, entertaining characters, most of of whom I liked. It dealt with a difficult dilemma which was perhaps too neatly solved but it made me happy.
    • 5/5
      Brilliant, brilliant book. It starts off with a startling array of niceness - nice family, nice lifestyle, a miasma of likeability. The boyfriend in particular is way too good to be true (he actually invites his girlfriend's mother to come and live with them, and appears to welcome the prospect. Blokes like that don't exist outside of fiction). The reason for all this likeability becomes clear when it emerges that this book centres around a tug-of-love situation, and ensures that we don't know which side to sympathise with.Some skilfuly dropped clues ensure that the reader is always one step ahead of the characters and anticipating the next step, and good pacing ensures that it is a while before they catch up, so the suspense is ensured. Like all the other books I have read by this author, the research is thorough without weighing down the plot, and it is compelling, humorous and informative.I had no idea that this was part of a series, but upon finishing it I discovered 'The Bean Trees' in a second hand shop and found out that it was a prequel to this one, so guess what I read next.
    • 4/5
      This is the sequel to the Bean Trees. Turtle, as a result of a rescue publicized on national TV, is identified as the lost child of a Cherokee band. (Taylor had adopted Turtle, who had been thrust at her by the mother at a truck stop, who then disappeared). The fudged adoption comes to light and the novel focuses on the competing claims as to where Turle belongs. On the one side isTaylor, the white mother, who did not seek to scoop a Native child, but was herself very young and inexperienced when the child was given to her. Taylor has been an exemplary mother and there is a strong and healthy bond between her and Turtle. On the other side is the Cherokee band, whose lawyer lays out the multitude of reasons why Turtle belongs with her people. Kingsolver does an excellent job in showing the validity of the claims of both sides. But the child cannot be sawed into half. The novel is the story of the conflict and its resolution, which turned out to be too convenient and facile -- creating an "everybody wins" scenario. This is the one aspect of this book I dislike. Other than that, I adore Kingsolver's writing and these characters.I read this book a couple of years before I moved to Manitoba, with its large Indigenous population and its history of systematically taking Indigenous kids away from their parents. Since I am a social work educator, this is an important issue for me to grasp and I found that Kingsolver's novel helped me to gain some insight into why it is so important for these children to remain in their communities.
    • 4/5
      I liked this book. I felt that it was political spin off from the Bean Trees. Taylor and Turtle explore moral and legal issues. Just like the first book Pigs in Heaven really brought the characters to life and was interesting. I would recomend this book.
    • 5/5
      Re-reading this after many years - I had forgotten how utterly lovely it was. Magical and uplifting. Barbara Kingsolver is endlessly wonderful....
    • 5/5
      ok, I'm rereading this now. Bean Trees and this one, the books I fell in love with in High School. I had it "reviewed" on here before, but think I was on crack or something, cause it only had 2 stars...yeah, it's clearly not that, not then and not now.Kingsolvers voice for me is what made the two mentioned books so involving for me. The characters were real and haunting, and I've spent years thinking about the characters, though not obsessively so, because that would be crazy, but in the way that I compare books. For years after reading Bean Trees, and the better Pigs in Heaven, I searched in vain for authors that had Kingsolvers way with pen. Alas it was to no avail. Not even Kingsolver compared with her various other stories. Of course, now I've found some I love and return to again and again. The joys of obsessive reading.
    • 4/5
      While it had the same likable characters returning from the Bean Trees and was definitely an enjoyable read, this book fell a little short when it came to capturing the magic its predecessor had.
    • 4/5
      Another fine Kingsolver story. I initially avoided reading her books, despite recommendations from people I kind-of knew! The reason I avoided them was that they sounded too heavily laden with socio-political messages, and I don't read fiction to be preached at. However, what I've found is that this author is remarkably skillful in creating characters and situations with which I could identify and become emotionally involved, despite their apparent distance from my own situation. This story is a classic example. The obvious target audience groups are mothers and native americans, and to neither of which do I belong. Kingsolver sets up a story of Cherokee versus mother, but she does it in such a way that this reader felt equally drawn to both sides. The justice of both the mother's position and the Indian's position is made evident and we can't see how this can resolve satisfactorily. Of course the conclusion doesn't have to be completely satisfactory, because life isn't like that, but nonetheless, Kingsolver's ultimate message is that love does have the power to take us beyond motherhood or genetic ancestry. Yes, the last couple of chapters did move me to tears, but I'm that sort of person I guess. It definitely helped, but wasn't essential, to read "The Bean Trees" first. This was especially true because it set up the (geographic) landscape for me, a non-American. That landscape (both urban and rural) and the way it affects the people's lives is a major issue in these books, I think.
    • 5/5
      The author is a wonderful storyteller. The stomp dance scene came alive for me.
    • 4/5
      Very nice character study; clever story/settings & nice background descriptions of American Indian adoption laws, Thoroughly enjoyable read. One of her best!
    • 5/5
      A bit disappointing. I enjoyed The Bean Trees more.
    • 4/5
      I very much enjoyed this book. There is a strong cultural dynamic, as well as the theme of motherhood and fear of loss. The characters are mostly compelling and, while the resolution is all a bit too neat, the story effectively drew me in throughout. Definitely one of the best things I've read this year, though, to be fair, the year thus far has been pretty well occupied by assigned readings.
    • 3/5
      While I didn't like this book as much as I enjoyed its prequel ('The Bean Trees'), it was nice to continue with the story of Turtle and learn a bit more about her. She gets a lot more interesting as a character in this book. I also found how I felt about the legal and emotional struggle between Turtle's adopted mother and her tribe very interesting.
    • 5/5
      Simply perfect! It spreads through your heart like steaming cup of tea on a wintry day...