Flight Behavior is in a new genre of fiction that is called Cli-Fi, or climate fiction (Wikipedia defines Cli-Fi as "a subgenre of science fiction that focuses on the Earth's climate, in particular emphasizing the effects of anthropogenic climate change and global warming..."). Here Barbara Kingsolver looks at the effects of climate change on a small rural community in the Appalachian mountains of Tennessee. The story is told from the point of view of a disgruntled married mother of two living with her docile, slow-witted husband and his parents on a small sheep farm. Into their lives appears a "miracle" in the form of a swarm of Monarch butterflies that come to spend the winter, instead of in their normal winter home in Mexico, in the pine forest above their house. When the news of the butterflies gets out, reporters, tourists, environmental advocates, and a team of university scientists also wind up on their hillside. But the changes that sent them the butterflies are also wrecking their livelihoods and their town.
The title relates to how we behave when we take flight from a bad situation in hopes of survival or growth.
