'Pigs in Heaven' by Barbara Kingsolver

2 April

Having loved Barbara Kingsolver's 1988 novel 'The Bean Trees' (reviewed here in June 2025), I was thrilled to discover that she had written a sequel. ‘Pigs in Heaven’ (published in 1993) shows us what has happened to Taylor and her adopted daughter Turtle three years after we left them settled in Tuscon. They are soon unsettled again and back in the car on an extended road trip as Barbara Kingsolver sensitively explores the implications of Turtle’s Cherokee heritage. She brilliantly constructs a seemingly impossible situation, managing to make the reader simultaneously sympathetic to characters with directly opposing points of view (like Andrea Levy in 'Small Island' (reviewed here in June 2019) or Jonathan Franzen in ‘The Corrections’ (reviewed here in February 2015)). But Barbara Kingsolver’s cast of quirky Dickensian characters are all charmingly likeable and you always feel they are going to find a heart-warming solution. 'Pigs in Heaven' is beautifully written and cleverly plotted. It explores the painful realities of working class life while creating a life-affirming story.