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.</p>
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, daughter-in-law, farm-hand and throw herself into an affair.</p>
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 back-water is jammed with scientists, reporters, campaigners and tourists, and they all want to meet the flame-haired Dellarobbia who ‘discovered’ the phenomenon.</p>
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. </p>
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 make-shift 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.’</p> 
Dellarobbia changes. Her spirit unfurls from its poverty and she takes wing. She refuses to be a drudge, or a dutiful daughter-in-law 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.’</p>
But, just as the butterflies could no longer exist in their changed environment, can this new Dellarobbia flourish in a small-town which will never change?</p>
This is a beautiful novel, with poetic prose and sparkling imagery to match the glinting butterflies on the hill. </p>
At times, Kingsolver does over-indulge 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. </p>
Likewise, Dellarobia’s poverty is similiarly over-emphaised. 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. </p>
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 front-runner for the Womens’ Prize. 
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<i>Flight Behaviour</i> is published by Faber and Faber</p>
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