 flight behaviour by barbara kingsolver dellarobbia an ethereal beautiful name a woman of this unworldly moniker surely sits in a florentine palazzo plucking a harp or eating a grape not in this novel dellarobbia lives in grim poverty in the appalachians her days spent wiping her children s noses pouring coffee for her dim husband getting filthy and worn in the endless grind of farm work she is still young and pretty and is desperate to be lifted out of this world and so she indulges in a flirtation with a local man they agree to meet in a cabin high in the woods and this is where the novel opens with dellarobbia climbing the hill fiercely ready to cast off her roles as wife mother daughterinlaw farmhand and throw herself into an affair something stops her a shimmering lake of fire on the mountain she is astonished this is surely a vision sent from god to make her return to her family she luxuriates in the beautiful sight and then retreats down the mountain to her family but everything has changed this was not a vision but a phenomenon caused by climate change masses upon masses of delicate orange butterflies have been driven north from mexico by the changing weather they chose to alight on dellarobia s farm and they flit and wink and shimmer in their countless millions upon her hillside soon her tiny backwater is jammed with scientists reporters campaigners and tourists and they all want to meet the flamehaired dellarobbia who discovered the phenomenon a novel about climate change don t let that put you off the story of how the fragile butterflies have been cast out of their environment runs alongside that of dellarobia with her unusual name and her unusual colouring equally beautiful and exotic who has found herself grounded in a life of damp dishcloths muddy fields and making a few dollars last all week the coming of this phenomenon offers her a glorious chance to switch her life onto a different track the lead scientist dr byron is equally as exotic as dellarobia or the butterflies together they form a triangle of beautiful difference in the grey dilapidated town he shows dellarobbia a new way of life and soon has her working in his makeshift lab on the hillside she is thrown open to new experiences far more exhilarating than her liaison in the cabin would have been we read that each morning she rose and rose to the occasion of this man dellarobbia changes her spirit unfurls from its poverty and she takes wing she refuses to be a drudge or a dutiful daughterinlaw and soon the arguments she d always swallowed like a daily ration of pebbles had begun coming into her mouth and leaping out like frogs but just as the butterflies could no longer exist in their changed environment can this new dellarobbia flourish in a smalltown which will never change this is a beautiful novel with poetic prose and sparkling imagery to match the glinting butterflies on the hill at times kingsolver does overindulge in science there are pages where dr byron is explaining about the migration and breeding habits of the butterflies and these convoluted sections are simply not necessary likewise dellarobia s poverty is similiarly overemphaised there is one scene where she wanders along the aisles of a thrift store and seemingly picks up and assesses each item only to place them sadly back on the shelf she s poor we get it so i think the novel would benefit from being trimmed back significantly it is at times quite flabby with science but this aside it is a beautiful and exhilirating story with a most unusual premise and will surely be a frontrunner for the womens prize flight behaviour is published by faber and faber book review barbara kingsolver archive k 