How Barbara Kingsolver helped Melissa Nygren appreciate moths
The Rosie and the Riveters singer shares what she loved about Barbara Kingsolver's classic novel.
Melissa Nygren is of the group Rosie and the Riveters from Saskatoon. She recently read Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver, a novel about a reclusive wildlife biologist, a hunter who disrupts her solitary life and a young girl who lives down the road. She tells The Next Chapter how the book helped her reconnect with — and better understand — the wilderness:
A novel I'm reading now is called Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver. The main character creates her own position as a park ranger in the Appalachian Mountains. She is sort of all alone, but she has a very deep connection with nature. I'm always fascinated with that. I used to work as a tree planter, so I would be alone in the forest for long periods of time and I really, really loved that.
Another thing that's interesting in the book is that Barbara could really describe moths in a very beautiful way. Moths have such a bad rap in society — everybody is trying to shoo them out of their house. In my family, my aunts and my mom were all terrified of moths, so I learned to appreciate them in a new way after reading this book.
Melissa Nygren's comments have been edited and condensed.