Buster, “High Tide in Tucson”
Buster is a hermit crab who becomes an unwitting hitchhiker on a trip from his home on the beach in the Bahamas all the way to the desert surroundings of Tucson. Upon discovering that an actual living creature was calling the seemingly empty seashell home the author decides to adopt and care for the hermit crab which receives the name Buster. Buster serves to become a metaphor for all the symbolic human hitchhikers one picks up in life.
Miss Truman Richey, “How Mr. Dewey Decimal Saved My Life”
The title credited the guy who invented that crazy decimal system for categorizing books with saving her life, but the story itself clearly places the credit squarely upon the author’s high school librarian. Miss Richey introduces her to the magic of the Dewey Decimal System ostensibly for the purpose of getting free help in cataloging and shelving all the books in the library. What came from that experience, however, was a feverish devourer of books who inevitably made the transition from reader to writer.
Dave, “In the Belly of the Beast”
Dave is a tour guide at museum which used to house one of the many Titan nuclear missiles around the country in their silos, waiting for that horrible day to come when the codes would be unlocked and they would be sent on their way to their appointed destinations. Actually, it still housed the missile; only the warhead had been tampered with. Before volunteering to work as a tour guide, Dave had trained recruits in the ways of operating cruise missiles so he is well-suited for a job that the author at first finds absolutely bewildering.
Camille Kingsolver
Camille is the author’s daughter who pops up as a character in a number of different stories. She first appears in the opening story when she helps to name and take care of Buster the hermit crab. She will accompany her mother to a variety of locations over the course of the narrative, becoming an active participant in the essential stories, but also looming more broadly as a presence of the responsibility of parents and adults in general.
Barbara Kingsolver
The main character throughout the book is, of course, the author herself. This is a memoir composed of individual, self-contained stories drawn from the recollection of a full and vibrant life. If Kingsolver is not necessarily at the center of the action, it is she who presides over the opinions and conclusions drawn from the actions and activities of others.
