A science teacher at the community school, Greenwood moves into the house with his touchy younger bride in 1871. Her forays into the town archives unearth a previous owner, Thatcher Greenwood, whose story unspools in a parallel narrative. Since even makeshift repairs are beyond their financial means, Willa hopes to win a preservation grant, if the house proves noteworthy within the history of Vineland, a utopian community back in the 19th century. With the new house bursting at the seams, Willa is aghast when a contractor declares it an architectural “shambles” with a nonexistent foundation. Kingsolver powerfully evokes the eeriness of living through times of social turmoil
Family life is thrown into further turmoil when son Zeke, reeling from his wife’s suicide, leaves his infant in their custody. Freelance writer Willa Knox inherits the home in 2016, at a fortuitous moment: her academic husband, Iano, recently lost tenure, the couple care for his ailing father and their bohemian daughter, Tig, has returned from Cuba heartbroken by a love affair.
Kingsolver uses interwoven timelines to trace the lives of two families living in the house a century and a half apart.
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