SOURCE: “Barbara Kingsolver's Lowfat Fiction,” in Journal of Popular Culture, Vol. 18, No. 4, Winter, 1995, pp. 77-82.

In the following essay, Ryan provides an overview of the major themes and critical reception of Kingsolver's novels. According to Ryan, Kingsolver's “aggressively politically correct” fiction is undermined by elements of sentimentality and implicit reversions to traditional values.

The world of contemporary American fiction must be a bewildering circus for many readers, though sales figures indicate that we're buying tickets at a record rate. Venues range from the intimate neighborhood bookshop where the owner knows your tastes and puts aside a choice new morsel that she's sure you'll love, to the new discount book megamarkets that always stock 5,000 copies of Danielle Steel's latest, at 25٪ off. The reading choices—just in contemporary American fiction—are staggering: mysteries—hundreds of mysteries; Stephen King and the other scary guys; sexy vampires; countless romances; as well as...