The Bean Trees

Taylor Greer grows up poor in rural Pittman County, Kentucky, with one goal: get out before the place turns her into another teen mother with no future. She rechristens herself, buys a worn-out Volkswagen, and heads west. In Oklahoma, a woman she has never met leaves an abandoned Cherokee toddler in her passenger seat, and Taylor names the silent, traumatized child Turtle. Settling in Tucson, Taylor builds a chosen family with a single mother named Lou Ann, the women who run a tire shop, and refugees fleeing violence in Guatemala, learning that survival is something people do for each other. Kingsolver's debut sets the warmth and social conscience that would define her work.