1874: Thatcher Greenwood has to break the news to his wife that their house is in a perilous state.

Meanwhile the curious behaviour their neighbour, the scientist Mary Treat, displays becomes fascinating to them.

Barbara Kingsolver's novel interweaves the past and the present to explore the human capacity for resilience and compassion in times of great upheaval.

It is a portrait of life in precarious times - when characters discover that the past has failed to prepare them for the future.

Alternating between two centuries, Kingsolver examines the personal and social shocks that ensue when people’s assumptions about the world and their place in it are shaken to their foundations.

Abridged by Sian Preece.

Read by Laurel Lefkow.

Producer: Gaynor Macfarlane

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2018. Show less