An emotional crescendo

Barbara Kingsolver’s latest novel Partita is as inspiring and beautiful as the musical pieces its title is derived from. The acclaimed Appalachian writer expertly weaves an emotionally charged story about love, heartache, hope, class divide, nostalgia and politics.

Kingsolver is the bestselling author of works of fiction, books of poetry, essays, creative non-fiction and children’s literature. She is an award-winning writer whose achievements include the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her novel Demon Copperhead.

Doubling down on Partita’s musical theme, the chapters are named after musical movements, and Kingsolver offers readers a “Listening List” of compositions to pair with the readings in the way one might suggest complementary wine to cheese.

An unexpected phone call from an old lover threatens to disrupt the prosaic life and marriage of Livia Cable. The novel jumps between past and present, beginning with Livia navigating her earlier years, affected by loss and grief after her brother steps in front of a train, and indifference and coldness from her hardened mother.

As a music conservatory student, she meets Sigrid, a dark, handsome, irresistible typesetter who’s championing a revolution. She quickly becomes as obsessed with Sigrid as she is with playing the piano. “I should have understood, I was only ever going to be one among so many. But that’s the thing about irresistible people: They make you feel like you are the one among many,” Livia says.

Amidst their love affair, Sigrid abruptly announces he’s moving to Arizona to continue his work for the revolution, shattering Livia’s dreams and confidence and leaving her in a dark place. “How could I trust his gravity and follow him with empty hands, now that I knew my position in his universe? I was not his North Star. I was leavable,” Kingsolver writes.

After a terrible accident affects her ability to play the piano, Livia finds out Sigrid had left her with more troubles than she initially thought.

Broken and despondent, Livia returns home to a simple life at her family’s farm, which her father unexpectantly leaves to her after his passing. She digs through the detritus of her childhood house and uncovers family secrets as deep as the hoards of junk that her mother filled it with.

Her days are consumed with teaching piano and caring for her farm and husband. A call from Sigrid with a plea to meet him again, after all these years, ignites a dangerous flame in Livia that she’s not sure she can put out. “But sanity is hard to pin down where love is concerned, a concoction made of equal parts reality, hope, trust and delusion. Or not equal parts, maybe not at all,” she muses.

Kingsolver’s prose flows as gracefully and elegantly as a sonata while examining powerful themes in an approachable and thought-provoking way. “That’s bodies for you, underneath all the minds drama just pitiable flesh,” she writes.

In Partita, she manages to expose the heart and bare the souls of her characters, constructing them with flaws, ambitions and motivations that allow the reader to become fully immersed in their world and perspective. The novel offers a crash course in music history and theory, and while the Partita is more character-driven than some of her other work, Kingsolver’s expert storytelling makes up for what it lacks in action.

Jenna Boholij is a Winnipeg writer with an affinity for nature and all things Icelandic. Her debut novel Lucid was published in 2024 by Dreamsphere Books. Find her @jbird_photos.