We’re a bit funny about home ownership in the UK and US. Somewhere in the region of 2/3 of us own our homes rather than renting, compared to only around half of Germans. The whys and wherefores of the desire to own a home rather than have the flexibility of renting I will leave to other wiser people and their insightful political and social commentary. Suffice to say that for many of us in the UK, home ownership seems linked to status and financial success – strange when you consider that renting often takes up more than twice the proportion of a tenant’s monthly salary than a mortgage would, and requires not only similar credit approvals but far more invasive checks such as character references.

All this to say that we perhaps have a bit of a mixed-up perspective on the importance of the name on the title deeds of the place where we go to sleep most nights. Unsheltered holds up a mirror to those feelings and replaced them – for me – with total discomfiture.

Unsheltered cover.jpg — Unsheltered

Faber & Faber, 2018

Barbara Kingsolver

The book is set across two parallel stories. The first in modern-day America - New Jersey to be precise; the second in the same town in the prohibition era. In the contemporary story, Willa Knox is the glue that’s holding a fractured family together. She has a newly-bereaved son returning home with his infant child. Her misfit daughter seems to have no direction or motivation. Her husband is charismatic and passionate, but not much use for anything practical, and her father-in-law is a black hole of prejudiced opinions and bad-tempered spite. Surrounding all of this drama, and ever-present: the house they live in is falling down around their ears.

“There is a time for propping things up, and then there is past time”

Willa and her husband Iano have inherited a large and outwardly appealing Victorian-era house, bequeathed to them by Willa’s aunt. It’s the stuff of dreams for a property developer or Instagram influencer, but for recently-redundant Willa and her non-tenured professor husband, it’s a disaster. The cracked walls, crumbling brick-work and leaking roof are entirely unfixable on their budget of zero.

Overwhelmed by the news that her family may soon be homeless, Willa starts searching for ways to tackle the problem. She looks into various grants and subsidies, and discovers that somewhere on her street a famous scientist once lived – one of the first women in her field and a pioneer of her time. Willa resolves to discover as much as she can about Mary Treat, in hopes that if it was her house that she and her family now live in, there may be some funds to renovate a site of historical significance.

“He speaks to those who want nothing new”

In the parallel timeline, a new town has been founded by Captain Landis, who had a vision of an idealised place to live and work. Thatcher is a young newlywed who forms a friendship with the eccentric and fascinating woman who lives next door. His house is crumbling and the idealistic young teacher has no means to fix it, never mind fund the socialising and lifestyle his wife expects. Thatcher tries to stand up for truth and for science, but faces off against a legalistic and religious town leadership.

As his friendship with Mary Treat grows, Thatcher learns to see the world in new ways, and to view the beauty in small things. But will this friendship bring ruin to his marriage?

The chapters alternate back and forward across the hundred years gap. The last few words of each chapter form the title of the next, creating links in the chains that bind us across time. Everything changes, and nothing does. Kingsolver evokes relationships of all types in ways all-too-realistic and close to home. In Unsheltered she also makes us consider where we find our security, and whether our obsession with belongings and ownership is clouding our vision of what is actually important in life.

Discovering what becomes of Willa and her family, and of Thatcher and Mary Treat a hundred years before, is only part of what makes Unsheltered an incredible read. Kingsolver weaves in strands exploring the challenges of seeking health care in America, of bringing up children who are years into adulthood yet require as much support as when they were small, and of the struggle for educational reforms that reflect changing priorities and increased understanding. Kingsolver is always a beautiful writer and, in every book of hers I’ve read, her turns of phrase make me stop and re-read sentences just for the beauty in the words. As houses crumble, lives are built up and fall; and in the end we are all exposed. How much would we sacrifice to be masters of our own destiny?