Researching the home's past in the hopes of finding grant-worthy historical significance, Willa becomes fascinated by science teacher Thatcher Greenwood and his neighbor, naturalist Mary Treat, one of whom may have lived on the property in the 1870s. Destitute after decades of striving and stunned by the racist presidential candidate upending America's ideals, the couple feels bewildered by the future facing them. They hope the house they have inherited in Vineland will help rebuild their finances, but%E2%80%94riddled with structural problems too costly to repair%E2%80%94it slowly collapses around them. They find themselves responsible for Iano's ailing father and their single son's new baby. In the first storyline, set in the present, the magazine Willa Knox edited and the college at which her husband, Iano Tavoularis, taught both fold at the same time. Its two intertwined narratives are set in Vineland, a real New Jersey town built as a utopian community in the 1860s. Kingsolver's meticulously observed, elegantly structured novel unites social commentary with gripping storytelling.
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