Barbara Kingsolver

reads from

Flight Behavior:
A Novel

$5 tickets are on sale now

This event includes a book signing

Date

Nov
13
Tuesday
November 13, 2012
8:00 PM ET

Location

First Parish Church
1446 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138

Tickets

Harvard Book Store is delighted to welcome award-winning novelist BARBARA KINGSOLVER for a reading of her most recent novel, Flight Behavior.

In the lyrical language of her native Appalachia, Kingsolver bares the rich, tarnished humanity of her novel's inhabitants and unearths the modern complexities of rural existence. Characters and reader alike are quickly carried beyond familiar territory here, into the unsettled ground of science, faith, and everyday truces between reason and conviction.

Dellarobia Turnbow is a restless farm wife who gave up her own plans when she accidentally became pregnant at seventeen. Now, after a decade of domestic disharmony on a failing farm, she has settled for permanent disappointment but seeks momentary escape through an obsessive flirtation with a younger man. As she hikes up a mountain road behind her house to a secret tryst, she encounters a shocking sight: a silent, forested valley filled with what looks like a lake of fire. She can only understand it as a cautionary miracle, but it sparks a raft of other explanations from scientists, religious leaders, and the media. The bewildering emergency draws rural farmers into unexpected acquaintance with urbane journalists, opportunists, sightseers, and a striking biologist with his own stake in the outcome. As the community lines up to judge the woman and her miracle, Dellarobia confronts her family, her church, her town, and a larger world, in a flight toward truth that could undo all she has ever believed.

Flight Behavior takes on one of the most contentious subjects of our time: climate change. With a deft and versatile empathy Kingsolver dissects the motives that drive denial and belief in a precarious world.

Barbara Kingsolver
Barbara Kingsolver

Barbara Kingsolver

Barbara Kingsolver's work has been translated into more than twenty languages and has earned a devoted readership at home and abroad. In 2000 she was awarded the National Humanities Medal, our country's highest honor for service through the arts. She received the 2011 Dayton Literary Peace Prize for the body of her work, and in 2010 won Britain's Orange Prize for The Lacuna. Before she made her living as a writer, Kingsolver earned degrees in biology and worked as a scientist. She now lives with her family on a farm in southern Appalachia.

Online ticket sales have now ended, but tickets can still be purchased at Harvard Book Store and by phone at 617-661-1515 until 5pm the day of the event. Remaining tickets will be on sale at the door of the First Parish Church when we open doors at about 6:30.

Please note that your ticket ONLY guarantees you a seat until five minutes before an event begins. $5 tickets are also coupons, good for $5 off a purchase at events or at Harvard Book Store. Coupons expire one month after the event, and cannot be used for online purchases, event tickets, or gift certificates. Additionally, tickets purchased online may only be picked up at the venue the night of the event, and cannot be picked up in-store beforehand.

First Parish Church
1446 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138

Walking from the Harvard Square T station: 2 minutes

As you exit the station, cross Mass. Ave. and look for the newsstand called Crimson Corner. Turn right and proceed north along Mass. Ave. going toward the Cambridge Common. You will pass the Harvard Coop, Bank of America, and CVS. The First Parish Church is located at the corner of Mass. Ave. and Church St. Please enter through the front door of the church.

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FAQ:

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