Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver

Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver

In this skillfully told novel, Codi Noline returns to her hometown of Grace, Arizona, to confront her past and care for her ailing father, Homer, whose declining mental abilities are threatening his work as a local physician. While Codi seeks to avoid the complications of life, she instead finds herself at the center of a town threatened by a silent environmental catastrophe as the Black Mountain Mining Company poisons the local river. Through alternating viewpoints, Kingsolver adroitly melds the introspective histories of father and daughter, while Codi navigates a complicated romance with an Apache trainman, Loyd Peregrina, and deals with the harrowing kidnapping of her sister, Hallie, in Nicaragua. Animal Dreams is a moving exploration of life’s largest commitments, set against a vividly developed landscape of hot springs, dramatic vistas, and ancient pueblos.

Why You’ll Love This Book

Codi Noline walks back into her life like a trespasser, trying to reconcile the arid beauty of Arizona with a family history that is literally dissolving. The narrative treats a dying river and a father’s fading memory as the same tragedy, where the loss of the past threatens to poison the future. This journey reveals the heavy weight of biological and environmental inheritance, proving that the version of ourselves we left behind is often the hardest thing to reclaim.