![]() ![]() An enigmatic entomologist, Ovid Byron, arrives from distant parts to pitch a trailer laboratory in Dellarobia and Cub's back yard, explaining that the monarchs once migrated to Mexico, but have been confused by dire weather there and could be near extinction if the Appalachian winter lingers. ![]() The town's chief pastor, a blessedly likable fellow named Bobby Ogle, declares the insects' visit a divine miracle. ![]() ![]() She hasn't worn her glasses, so can't tell right away what it is - millions of migrating monarch butterflies taking refuge in the warm, wet valley.ĭellarobia's discovery launches one heck of a good story full of colorful yet subtle characters. The anticipation of bliss and doom, the wages of adultery, slams to a halt when she reaches the summit and finds the forested valley below ablaze in shimmering orange. Her family, she notes wryly, is "an alliance of people at odds." Her beauty is still evident, despite her kitschy clothes and constant cloak of cigarette smoke, but her bright, curious spirit is ebbing, tarnished by poverty, two small children, hard-to-please in-laws and a mighty effort to keep loving Cub, the dull but kind man she married at 17. 'A certain feeling comes from throwing your good life away, and it is one part rapture." So begins Barbara Kingsolver's sprawling novel "Flight Behavior," in which a brooding young woman named Dellarobia Turnbow trudges up a mountain near her shabby eastern Tennessee home to meet a man she intends to take as her lover. ![]()
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