escriptionof downtown Tucson: ... the railroad track, which at one time functioned as a kind of artery, punctured Tucson's old, creaky chest cavity and prepared to enter the complicated auricles and ventricles of the railroad station. In the old days I suppose it would have been bringing the city a fresh load of life, like a blood vessel carrying platelets to circulate through the lungs. Nowadays, if you could even call the railroad an artery of Tucson, you would have to say it was a hardened one. Kingsolver's images of people and places are often rooted in the absurd, taking note of the oddities of real-life. In this manner,her style resembles that of the audacious and inventive Tom Robbins, though Kingsolver's books tend to make more sense.(Anyone who dares venture out to a showing of the currently showing film adaptation of Robbins's, Even Cowgirls Get TheBlues, will note his rambling style; the book was no more clear.) Taylor and the other characters are on a life-long journey ofdiscovery. The unexpected is what gives life flavor for these characters, that and the pleasure of anticipating life's next plot-twist.The human insights which pepper the story ring clear and true.Taylor Greer leaves home searching for a chance at a better life. The better life, she discovers, is found in a sense of belongingwhere you are, rather than in any particular place. When she accepts her new role as mother, and learns to like herself in thatrole, she has already arrived. Barbara Kingsolver has written a sequel to "The Bean Trees," Pigs In Heaven (copyright 1993.343 pages. Hardcover, HarperCollins. $22.00). In it, Taylor fights to keep what she has found, for Turtle and for herself.Next week: "Pigs In Heaven."...
