Emily Howard, Writer

Book Review: The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

“Everything you’re sure is right can be wrong in another place.” – Leah Price, The Poisonwood Bible

Quick take: This is a must read for Christians, non-Christians, those concerned with racial issues…for any human being, really. The Poisonwood Bible is one of the best books I have ever read. It should be studied in schools. Go buy it.

“We came from Bethlehem, Georgia bearing Betty Crocker cake mixes into the jungle,” narrates one of the Price daughters at the beginning of their journey from Georgia to the Congo.

What an incredible surprise this book was! I heard it mentioned on one of my favorite podcasts and decided to give Barbara Kingsolver a try. I had no idea what to expect, except that it told the story of missionaries in Africa, so that was enough to interest me right off.

Y’all, this is not a happy Christian book. Just know that right off. What it is is real and emotional and thought provoking. The main characters, the Price family, are missionary Baptists in the 1960s from rural Georgia. Their preacher father, Nathan, moves the entire family, four daughters and all, to the Congo to save the heathens’ souls. 

What follows are first person accounts from beautifully fleshed out characters (all women: the mother and four Price daughters) about their adventures and tragedies in the jungles of the Congo. The personal growth for each character is unique, relatable, and touches the soul in many different ways. We hear the anguish in the mother’s voice as she tries to keep her family alive in harsh conditions, the anger in daughter Leah’s voice as she realizes that her father is not the perfect role model she had always tried to follow, the condescension in daughter Rachel’s voice as she continually looks down on anyone with skin darker than hers.

I came away from The Poisonwood Bible frustrated with fundamentalist Christianity, with white supremacy, with colonialism. I also came away with a new appreciation for the unique, loving, and passionate culture of the villages of Africa (which I already had from my trip to Rwanda several years ago, but Kingsolver’s words brought back those pictures quite vividly). 

I’ll leave off with this quote, which is just one of so many thought provoking passages I could not possibly share them all. “I could never work out whether we were to view religion as a life-insurance policy or a life sentence. I can understand a wrathful God who’d just as soon dangle us all from a hook. And I can understand a tender, unprejudiced Jesus. But I could never quite feature the two of them living in the same house. You wind up walking on eggshells, never knowing which… is at home at the moment.”

If you want a book that makes you laugh, cry, think, and fall in love, I cannot recommend The Poisonwood Bible enough.