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The Poisonwood Bible | Introduction

When The Poisonwood Bible was published in 1998, Barbara Kingsolver was already a well-established and respected author. Her fourth novel, however, became an overwhelming critical and popular success, especially after Oprah Winfrey chose it for her book club. The novel sold more hardcover copies than all of Kingsolver's previous works put together, including three novels, short story collections, a poetry collection, and two nonfiction works.

Barbara Kingsolver
Barbara Kingsolver © AP Images

As in many of her other stories, Kingsolver in The Poisonwood Bible focuses on the complexities of family relationships and communities in which people experience a clash of cultures. Yet here, she widens her scope to include three decades in the second half of the twentieth century during a time of political upheaval in the Congo. The novel focuses on the experiences of the Price family, who arrive in the Congo in 1959, emissaries of the Southern Baptist Mission League. Orleanna Price, along with her four daughters, struggles to adapt to and to survive the harsh conditions there while her husband, Nathan Price, descends into madness as he tries and fails to force the villagers to adopt his rigid Christian doctrines.

The family's troubles become life-threatening as the Congolese fight for their independence from Belgium and from U.S. interference in their political and social affairs. Kingsolver's intermingling of politics and human drama results in a satisfying tale of betrayal and forgiveness. Reviewers have applauded the novel's compelling characters, its political themes, and Kingsolver's insight into the complex dynamics of the family.

The Poisonwood Bible Summary

Book One: Genesis

The narrative presents multiple points of view as Orleanna Price and her four daughters each tell their own story of their family's experience in the Congo. Orleanna Price opens The Poisonwood Bible from Sanderling Island, Georgia, where she lives decades after her family left the Congo. While she thinks of Africa, she speaks to her dead child who is unidentified at this point. She remembers one afternoon when they went on a picnic. Even though she admits that the child she is speaking to was her favorite, she begs her daughter to leave her alone.

Fourteen-year-old Leah begins the story of the family's life in Kilanga, Congo, in 1959. The Price family came from Bethlehem, Georgia, bringing as many of the comforts of home as they could carry. Five-year-old Ruth May talks about segregation back home and insists that her sisters will not be going to school with the village children. She admits that she is bad sometimes and explains that Adah, Leah's twin, is brain damaged and hates all of them.

Fifteen-year-old Rachel takes stock of the situation when they land and realizes that they will have no control over their lives in the Congo. She immediately misses the comforts of home more than the others. The village men, bare-chested women, and naked children welcome them, singing their own versions of Christian hymns. After Nathan delivers a brief sermon about God punishing "sinners" for their nakedness, the villagers turn away dismayed, some women covering their breasts. When the Prices begin to eat food prepared by the villagers, Orleanna warns her daughters not to spit it out. That night, Rachel cries herself to sleep.

Adah describes the village with its little mud houses inhabited by "tired thin women." She remains mute because doctors who determined that she has hemiplegia, or the inability to move one side of her body, insisted that only half of her brain worked and that she would never speak. Leah explains that during their first days in Congo, the girls were all afraid to leave the house. They took bitter quinine tablets to ward off malaria, their greatest fear. Leah vows to work hard with her father in growing crops for the village to help them and to gain his recognition, which she desperately craves.

The children are in awe of Mama Bekwa Tataba, a village woman who becomes their servant and teaches them how to survive in the Congo. Leah is shocked that she is contemptuous of her father's planting skills, but Mama Tataba shows them the proper way to plant crops. When the rainy season comes, his crops are washed away.

On Easter Sunday, Nathan stages a pageant to encourage baptism, but the villagers, whose attendance at church has been sparse, refuse. Orleanna fries up chicken and passes it out to the village, winning them over. The family has inherited from Brother Fowles, the previous missionary, a parrot named Methuselah who has picked up his previous owner's earthy language, which vexes Nathan. He punishes Leah, Ruth May, and Rachel, thinking that they have taught the bird to swear, by forcing them to write out biblical verses. None tells him that Methuselah had overheard Orleanna swearing over the seemingly impossible task of keeping the family fed.

Nathan sets off dynamite in the river to kill fish for the villagers and so inspire them to join the church. So many fish are killed, however, that the day of abundance becomes a day of waste since there is no way to preserve the fish that are not eaten. They soon realize that their garden will never provide food because there are no insects to pollinate the plants. One day the family suffers two losses: Mama Tataba leaves after Nathan gives a long sermon on baptism, and Nathan releases Methuselah into the wild. Nathan later discovers that the villagers refuse to allow him to baptize them because a girl was eaten the previous year by a crocodile when she was swimming in the river.

Book Two: The Revelation

The narrative shifts back to Orleanna on Sanderling Island, reflecting on how Nathan hardened his will during their time in Kilanga and grew more distant from the children and from her.

Back in the Congo, Leah is fascinated by the new sights of the jungle and claims it to be a heavenly paradise. Ruth May makes friends with many of the village children, and Leah makes her first friend, Pascal, who teaches her the names of everything she sees as well as important survival skills. When Ruth May breaks her arm after falling out of a tree, Eeben Axelroot, a bush pilot and mercenary, flies her and Nathan to the doctor in nearby Stanleyville.

Later, Anatole, the village schoolteacher and interpreter of Nathan's sermons, warns Nathan that their chief, Tata Ndu is concerned that his people will turn their backs on their own customs and traditions. Anatole explains that the only villagers who are attending his services are those who feel that their gods have abandoned them. Tata Ndu fears that if Nathan lures too many people to his church, the gods will become angry and punish the village. Nathan tries to force Anatole to support him, but Anatole... » Complete The Poisonwood Bible Summary