A Different Take on the Meaning of "Family"

There's a classic song about differences of opinion from a Broadway musical:

You say 'po-TAY-to,' and I say 'po-TAH-to.'
You say 'to-MAY-to,' and I say 'to-MAH-to.'
Po-TAY-to, po-TAH-to, to-MAY-to, to-MAH-to;
Let's call the whole thing off!*

The subject of the song is unabashedly trivial, typical for musical comedy in the mid-twentieth century. We all know that most differences of opinion are far more important than the mere pronunciation of vegetable's names.** Regardless of what modern Hollywood would have us think, though, such conflict doesn't always result in violence, at least not of a physical nature. That doesn't mean that there won't be damage: lots of conflicts leave scars where they can't be seen. Take for instance, legal wrangling for the future of a six-year-old girl. The source of conflict? who should be considered her real family...


The Return of Taylor and Turtle

When Cherokee tribal lawyer Annawake Fourkiller shows up in Taylor Greer's kitchen to share a cup of coffee, Taylor immediately realizes no good can come of her visit. Turtle Greer - Taylor's adopted Cherokee daughter - found her fifteen minutes of fame early in life, when the six-year-old's stubbornness led to a dramatic rescue at Hoover Dam. After a chance glimpse of the child on the Oprah show set Annawake in motion, her appearance in Tucson set Taylor and Turtle in motion of their own. The young mother and her stoic little girl are on the run, leaving behind the life and friends they'd made over the past three years.

Mother and daughter are soon joined by grandmother. Alice Greer is herself on the lam from a failed marriage and eager to help the daughter she loves and the grandchild she loves by proxy, even though they'd never met. While Taylor and Turtle skulk about the shadows of a series of western towns, Alice sets out to beard the lioness in her den. And Annawake sets forth on her plan to "rescue" Turtle from an illegal adoption and return her to the arms of her tribal heritage.


The Return of a Prodigal Son

Wandering Cherokee Cash Stillwater has returned after three years spent resisting the call of the hickory trees of eastern Oklahoma. He's come home in hopes of reuniting what little remains of his family; and he asks Annawake's help in locating the granddaughter abandoned by his daughter at a truck stop near Oklahoma City three years back. Our Annawake's not just beautiful, she's no dummy, either. She can put two and two together, but can she decide what's best for a little girl she's never met, and soothe her own soul at the same time?


Diff'rent Stroke for Diff'rent Folks

We met Taylor and Turtle Greer back in The Bean Trees, where Barbara Kingsolver first nibbled about the edges of our definition of "family." They've returned in Pigs in Heaven, as Kingsolver once again explores the definition of family in American culture - and here contrasts our definition with that of others. The concept of mother and child as an inseparable unit is, to quote Kingsolver, "an icon of our culture." But among other peoples, the ties of blood are spread over a larger web:

"[The Cherokee] don't distinguish between father, uncle, mother, grandmother. We don't think of ourselves as having extended families. We look at [whites] and think you have contracted families."

That's Annawake's elegantly simple statement of the question at the heart of Pigs in Heaven: should the adoption of a Cherokee child by whites be allowed to stand? Her arguments are tenacity itself: defined in the culture of her people; forged on the Trail of Tears; shaped by the loss of her own twin brother to forced adoption outside the tribe. Though she has the power of a sovereign Nation at her back, she made one fatal mistake: she met Taylor in person. Will Annawake put another through a loss so devastating as her own? Can she remove Turtle from her adopted family after her blood kin abandoned her? Or is the divine Ms. Fourkiller a lot smarter than her buzz-cut hair might lead us to think...


Lessons Learned

In part, Pigs in Heaven explores a painful legacy of US history; a legacy rooted in sheer, dogmatic ethnocentricity; benign neglect; and benevolent ignorance. For more than a century, the Cherokee (and other Nations) were square pegs tenaciously resisting being pounded into round holes. The federal government's policy was always one of forced acculturation: boarding schools taught entirely in English and housing more in keeping with a Midwestern suburb than tribal lands. In spite of, or perhaps because of, these policies, the Cherokee nation endured, its culture and its practices surviving and even thriving.

The stubbornness of the Cherokee people (Turtle's birthright, it seems) stood them in good stead over long generations. Their children respect the elders; their connection to the land remains intact; their customs and ceremonies are still observed. Annawake's purpose is to ensure that the chain of culture is not irreparably broken; and yet she and the tribe must show the wisdom of Solomon if they are to avoid disaster for all parties.


A Case of Sequelitis?

Popular wisdom would have us believe that a sequel is rarely as good as the original. Where this is almost certainly true of movies ("Jaws II": need I say more?), it's not necessarily true of books. Unfortunately, this time it is: Pigs in Heaven lacks the cohesion that made The Bean Trees a classic novel. Kingsolver's eye for detail, her languid prose, her knack for creating likeable characters have not changed a whit - in fact, they're likely sharpened. What is different, though, is a certain looseness in plotting. Kingsolver's characters are always suspended in a web of relationships - witness the three sub-parallel stories she tells in Prodigal Summer - but here the coincidences of interconnection feel forced. Fortunately, she sets up her coincidences chapters in advance, avoiding the trap of immediacy into which so many lesser authors might fall.

Kingsolver's skill in crafting believable characters is somehow a disadvantage in Pigs in Heaven. Odd souls people the pages, arising, shifting, and disappearing like sand dunes. The likes of Jax, Barbie, Lucky Buster, Gundi, and Rose drift in and out of the novel, always leaving their mark on the narrative but somehow fading away before the page turns. The introduction and subsequent discarding of characters is vaguely distracting, as we are left wondering just what happened? And where did they go?

To say that Pigs in Heaven is a lesser work than The Bean Trees is not to say that it is inferior. Like Kingsolver's other works (Poisonwood Bible, Animal Dreams, and Prodigal Summer), Pigs in Heaven is a worthy novel: thoughtful, carefully researched, peopled with three-dimensional characters, lovingly written. It's just not as good as the original - but neither are a heck of a lot of other books out there.

Read it: the themes will be familiar to fans of Kingsolver everywhere: strong, proud women and a keen sense of the complexity of nature, whether it be the web of life or the web of family. Highly recommended, though you may want to read The Bean Trees first.


* Music by George Gershwin, lyrics by Ira Gershwin, from the movie "Shall We Dance" (1936)"
** Yes, I do know the tomato's a fruit; I remain unconvinced, however, that ketchup is a vegetable.