Barbara Kingsolver’s homestead outside Abingdon isn’t just a historic home and working farm. It’s her creative anchor.
“When my urban friends occasionally ask me, 'How can you live out there in the middle of nowhere?' I just think, 'You have no idea,'" Kingsolver says. "This is my everywhere. This is my everything. This place feeds me literally, and it feeds my soul, and I feel like I belong to this land.”
Kingsolver grew up in Appalachian Kentucky, spent time in what’s now the Democratic Republic of Congo, and studied classical piano in college before shifting to biology. Since 2004, she and her family have lived in southwestern Virginia.
All of these experiences have played into her novels – from 1998’s "The Poisonwood Bible," to 2007’s "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle," to 2022’s "Demon Copperhead." That last book won the Pulitzer Prize, and instantly became part of the canon of Appalachian literature.
“I'm really happy about that because my intention when I set out to write it was really to write The Great Appalachian Novel, which I couldn't have written until I reached a certain age, a certain level of experience and maturity and also a certain comfort with my full embrace of my own Appalachian heritage," Kingsolver says. "I had to really live with that for decades before I could say to myself, I am ready to tell the story of us in the biggest way I can, but in the voice of one person who's living through the worst of what the world has thrown at us and blamed us for.
"And bring in the back story, the back story of coal, the back story of timber, how these companies have come in and taken the best of what we have in this very resource-rich place and left behind a mess. So, that was a big story and I waited a long time to tell it. And when I did, I was quite amazed honestly that the world was ready to hear it in such a big way.”
In her new novel, "Partita," Kingsolver again pulls from her experience for a love story, told from the perspective of a middle-aged woman thinking back on her past as she grapples with her present.
“In contrast to 'Demon Copperhead,' this is another kind of Appalachian novel," Kingsolver says. "I'm happy about that because it goes to the point that I think so many of us are always trying to explain to outsiders which is we are not all one kind of person. We are complex, nuanced communities of people. We are people who live in this place making the best lives we can, who think of ourselves as pretty ordinary people among our neighbors.
"But," she adds, "certain facts remain. If we’re farmers, likely, we don't have health insurance. And that plays an important role in this novel. Or if we do, we don't have easy access to doctors. We are people who cannot, for the most part, afford to send our children to college. And there's more subtle things like that. One is, we don't all necessarily want our kids to go to college. Or even if we say we do, in our hearts we're afraid because in all likelihood, they won't come back. So, these are all sort of Appalachian realities that I enjoyed writing about because it's the ecosystem of the novel that I felt really good about putting on the map.”
Kingsolver also wants to demystify classical music and reclaim it for ordinary people. She developed a playlist for Partita, which also adorns the audiobook.
“We should not be afraid to claim any beauty that people have ever made," she says. "We deserve and have every right to be in an art museum and to be in a concert hall.”
In a lot of ways, everything comes back to Kingsolver’s place in Washington County — in southwestern Virginia — in Appalachia.
She’s not just writing novels. She’s leveraged her literary success to invest in community projects, like Appalachian Sustainable Development, a nonprofit that was founded to help former tobacco farmers better get their crops to market. Or the Blue Ridge Discovery Center, which shares the natural history of the Blue Ridge, especially with kids.
Or the Higher Ground Women’s Recovery Center.
“Lee County gave me the story of 'Demon Copperhead,' and Lee County needs — desperately needs — support for people who are in recovery from addiction," Kingsolver says. "And so with a lot of the royalties from 'Demon Copperhead,' I was able to found, establish, and support a recovery home for women, the Higher Ground Women's Recovery Residence, which has been such a gift to me, honestly. I mean, how lucky am I that I get to be a part of that community and see these really inspiring women and what they can do for themselves and each other.”
Barbara Kingsolver’s new novel is "Partita." It’s available now from Harper Books.
