High Tide in Tucson

Nature, in Kingsolver’s view, is not truly mysterious. Instead, it moves slowly and methodically, and only appears mysterious because most people are not patient enough to stop and observe its mechanisms. Those who do, like Charles Darwin, sometimes come away with grand new explanations for how the world works. Henry David Thoreau was another such observer; alongside his more famous works he published an important series of observations on plants, which proved that each plant grows from a specific seed—an idea still under debate at the time.

Kingsolver praises Thoreau’s rare gift to synthesize science and poetry. His observations of natural phenomena are both extremely enticing to read and convey an accurate picture of how nature looks and acts. Despite having lived over 100 years ago, his writing is capable of slowing readers down and encouraging them to observe, analyze, and appreciate the world around them. Kingsolver believes that for environmentalist messages to take hold, they must be presented in carefully considered ways similar to Thoreau’s writing. During a lecture, a student asks her why there can’t be TV commercials about the needs of the environment. In Kingsolver’s mind, this would be impossible because to truly understand the ways that humans are harming the earth, all people must first gain a better appreciation for how nature actually works.

This essay begins with snippets of letters that Kingsolver has received from fans, some adoring, some humorous, and some confusing, such as a note she got from a person disappointed that her novel Animal Dreams was not, as they anticipated, a nonfiction work about how animals dream. Others teach her interesting information: One letter informs her that the name Kingsolver likely translates to “battle-elf.” She sees reader mail as a major highlight of being a writer, and always eagerly anticipates bringing home a carload of new letters to open.

Some letters stay with her long after she has initially read them. Two such letters were in response to Animal Dreams, which has a violent ending. One particularly affecting letter mentioned the reader’s inability to finish the book, knowing it would end in death. The letter writer had an abusive past and tried to avoid violent media for her mental health. The other letter thanked Kingsolver for her thoughtful approach to a character’s death, which helped the letter writer come to terms with the death of two friends who were aid workers in Nicaragua.

Letters like these cause Kingsolver to reflect on good writing’s inherent connection to human emotion. When she was a girl, she created stories with elaborate, dramatic plots. As an adult, she realizes that plot matters less than how her words make the reader feel. Too often, she believes, writers and related artists, like filmmakers, turn to violence as a way of easily garnering a reaction. In contrast, Kingsolver is careful when writing violent scenes; she always makes sure that the violence is a response to a specific chain of events and is necessary for the book’s point. She dislikes works that rely heavily on gratuitous violence, especially against women.

This essay explores the place of truth and lies in fiction. When writing nonfiction, an author will be met with endless questions about the work’s validity, but novels are always assumed to be based on hard truths. Although Kingsolver tends to write about subjects she knows well, she rarely, if ever, tells true stories. Despite this, she is always assumed to be writing about herself. For example, after creating a character who adopts a Cherokee baby, she got advice about how to navigate a diverse culture parent-child relationship.

Kingsolver finds this humorous, because she has always had her own relationship with the truth. She was not necessarily a liar, but from a young age she loved to invent stories. Sometimes, she passed them off as real events. She believes that lying has come to have a bad name, but that it is not inherently a bad thing, as long as it is not done with malice. Becoming a writer gave her an outlet for healthy creative lies. Kingsolver does not try to trick people in real life, and always fact checks any true-to-life parts of her stories. But she can sit at her desk for hours, making up fantasies and passing them on to a willing audience.

Kingsolver suggests that more people should become comfortable with creative lying. This would lead to more stories, and ultimately reveal more deep truths. She offers a game to be played at the dinner table. One chair is to be designated the “liar’s seat,” and whoever sits there is not allowed to tell the truth for the entire meal.

The final essay returns to Buster the crab, who at the time of writing is “looking pretty banged up” (263) and appears to be about to molt. Kingsolver is fascinated by the molting process, during which the crab sheds its dead skin while buried under the sand and emerges refreshed with a new carapace. Crabs are at their softest and most vulnerable just after molting—if caught by humans, this is how they become soft-shelled crab dishes. Kingsolver’s hermit crab book recommends that she leave many shells next to Busters chosen molting spot, so he does not panic and die when he can’t find shelter in his weakened state.

Kingsolver, like Buster, continues to thrive in her desert home. She has created a pond from a small drainage behind her house, which has somehow filled with aquatic life despite being nowhere near a body of water. She imagines herself the goddess of a tiny world, with her subjects, mostly birds, always watching her from their roosts in her garden. Despite the apparent desolation of the desert, life is everywhere.

Kingsolver wrote this essay a few weeks after her wedding to her second husband, an ornithologist. She met him on a hike in Virginia, where he identified a scarlet tanager for her. She has placed her vodoun love fetish in a glass jar rather than in her pocket, because she feels that it has done its work. She describes her husband as extremely patient, and, although she is middle aged and somewhat set in her ways, he gives her hope for a bright future.