The poisonwood tree shadows the characters and symbolizes the problems faced by an American Southern Baptist missionary family sent to the Belgian Congo during the revolution of Patrice Lamumba in 1959. The tree itself was a danger. It could not be burned or the smoke might kill those who breathed its fumes. Nathan Price, the family patriarch, is sent to a remote village, accessible only by airplane, to bring the Word to these heathens who have so little understanding of righteousness that they walk around barely clothed. The Americans, of course, are totally out of their element and ill-prepared. In one humorous, yet tragic, scene, Nathan berates his children -- all girls -- for having taught Methusaleh, their parrot, to say the word "damn," condemning the poor beast's soul to the nether regions for all eternity. The girls, understanding their mother's frustration, don't tell him that the bird learned the word from their mother, who uttered it repeatedly upon learning the cake mix she had brought from the states had solidified into a brick-like mass from the high humidity. Nathan scours the river for a suitable place to baptize the heathen children, only to discover the local families won't let the children near the river because of the danger from crocodiles that had recently killed a young girl. Orleanna, Nathan's wife, and his four young daughters, ranging from five to fifteen, tell the story, each from her own perspective. The book is wonderfully written and a real page-turner, as the political situation deteriorates and we learn more about Nathan's deep-seated reasons for not abandoning his self-appointed post in the African bush. Nathan never understands why the villagers are afraid to baptize their children in the river; unable to understand the language, and despite Anatole's — a native teacher — attempts to get him to understand, he does not comprehend the danger of the crocodiles. His self-imposed ignorance stems partly from a refusal to be contaminated by the African wildness that he perceives to be sinful, but, it's also the result of being the only soldier left behind when his company was captured and forced on the Bataan death march. He's a complicated man who's motives appear base, but are really much more complex. The book can really be divided into two parts: Nathan's "reign" before the revolution, and after independence, when the women abandon Nathan, and Kingsolver concentrates on their lives and the effects that living in Africa had on them.
The second part is also much more politically explanatory. Kingsolver has graduate degrees in biology and ecology and that scientific perspective is clear, not to mention political activism that she does not hide. She notes that it was from reading Doris Lessing that she learned one could write about the problems of the world in a compelling, story-rich way. She despairs of the tragedy perpetrated on the indigenous peoples and the land by Western powers that coveted the natural resources. This book is guaranteed to hold you spellbound
