This vehicle serves as more than transportation the scrappy VW helps to baptize her for her new life by running out of gas in Taylor, Illinois by engineering her pivotal, lifechanging stop on a Cherokee reservation in Oklahoma and by blowing its bald tires mere blocks from her providential stop at the Jesus Is Lord Used Tires store in Tucson. Taylor makes her getaway in the hull of a ’55 VW Beetle, a barely driveable relict with no windows or starter. By the end of the first chapter, however, the echoes die away, and self-named Taylor Greer emerges–determined, mouthy, and itching to get out of her hometown. The Bean Trees, a first novel by Barbara Kingsolver, opens with distinct echoes of some of the last decade’s most interesting new novelists: Carolyn Chute, Olive Ann Burns, and, especially, Bobbie Ann Mason. When a baby trusts you, it gives you the strength to fight the whole world if you have to–even if that baby is mysteriously thrust into your arms one dark night as you are driving off to find freedom for yourself. Her fear of motherhood seems a natural reaction to Pittman County, where more high school girls gestate than graduate. Her fear of tires stems from witnessing a man blown sky-high when a tractor tire exploded.
This is part of the discovery made by Taylor Greer, a young woman from Pittman, Kentucky who confesses mortal fear of only two things in life–tires and motherhood. Here is that review from thirty years ago:īOOKMARK (Published in The Northfield News in 1990) The well-worn hard-cover copy you see here is my own. If I recall correctly, it was legendary bookseller Barbara Bonner who told me I had to read it, and, as usual, she was quite correct in her taste, judgment, and urgency. I was completely wowed by this book when I read it in 1989. The Bean Trees, her first novel, was published in 1988, and slowly (through word of mouth by readers, librarians, and bookseller) garnered positive reviews, robust sales, and, eventually, a secure place on English class syllabi.
As of 2020, Barbara Kingsolver has published fifteen books.
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