Taylor Greer grew up poor in rural Kentucky with the goals of avoiding pregnancy and getting away. But when she heads west with high hopes and a barely functioning car, she meets the human condition head-on. By the time Taylor arrives in Tucson, Arizona, she has acquired a child: a three-year-old Cherokee girl named Turtle, and must somehow come to terms with both motherhood and the necessity of putting down roots. “So wry and wise we wish it would never end. . . . The chatty, down-home audacity of Barbara Kingsolver’s remarkable first novel hooks us on the first page.”-San Francisco Chronicle Freshman Common Read: Nebraska Methodist College