A Review of Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible

The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver, is a finger drawn crooked through the heart of Africa, directing the lives of Nathan Price and his "five wives"— his wife, Orleanna, and their four daughters: Rachel, Leah, Adah, and Ruth May. It is a story of a family as well as a country: Congo, or Zaire as it was later called.
Nathan, the hot-headed, not-to-be-contradicted Baptist pastor is the self-declared savior of the Congo. His wife and daughters have but one recourse: shut-up and follow. Nathan's brash arrogance is only somewhat explained—though no less excusable—by his personal experience with the Bataan Death March (1942). But his utter disregard for the common respect of the nationals to whom he seeks to minister is just one of his deeply unjustified flaws. He is the caricature of a man, a shadow made real only by the equally shallow words that he speaks when he opens his...(click here to read more).

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