Author Barbara Kingsolver '77 Seeks "Truth and Beauty"

October 27, 2018

A USA Today article offering "Best bets for your weekend reading" recommends Unsheltered, the new novel by 1977 DePauw University graduate Barbara Kingsolver.

Joycelyn McClurg writes that in the novel, "Kingsolver’s point is clear: The American experiment, then and now, frays whenever its most fearful citizens take comfort in their own ignorance."

Read more here.

Kingsolver is also featured this weekend in the New York Times' "By the Book" feature. When she's working on a book, the best-selling novelist says, "I have a high tolerance for soporific research materials if I know they’re leading me into someplace worthy. It’s part of the artist’s deal, trying to spin gobbledygook into gold. But I also read fiction constantly, through every stage of writing, and on that score my rule never changes: I read books that are so good I wish I could have written them myself. And avoid the other kind."

When asked what moves her as a reader, Kingsolver offers, "Truth and beauty, of course. And forgetting completely that I am me ... I love fiction that educates me on the sly, especially about something I didn’t realize I wanted to know. I’m open to any kind of arcana: scientific, cultural, historical. As long as novelists have done their research and honored accuracy where it counts, I’d rather learn from a confabulation than from a textbook."

Released this month, Kingsolver's new book was recently the subject of the Wall Street Journal's "Influencers" feature.

Kingsolver's previous novels include Flight Behavior, The Lacuna, The Bean Trees and The Poisonwood Bible. She received the National Humanities Medal in 2000 and the 2010 Orange Prize and has been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

A zoology (biology) major at DePauw, Kingsolver said in a PBS documentary, "I wanted to go somewhere far away and exotic, so I went to DePauw University in Indiana. All the scales fell from my eyes; it was wonderful."

Kingsolver delivered the 1994 commencement address at her alma mater, "As Little Advice as Possible." You can see and hear the speech below.