39 pages 1 hour read

Barbara Kingsolver

Unsheltered

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2018

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Chapters 1-5Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 1 Summary: “Falling House”

The chapter is set during the novel’s present-day timeline. Willa Knox is a middle-aged magazine editor who has lost her job because the publication has gone out of business. She has a grown son, Zeke, who has just had a new baby, a boy named Aldus. Willa has also just inherited a rundown house in Vineland, New Jersey, from her maternal aunt, who recently died along with Willa’s mother, her twin sister. The house was rented to tenants while Willa’s aunt lived in a nursing home. Willa and her husband, Iano, lived in Virginia and consequently didn’t see the house much, but Iano, a professor, received a temporary job offer at a university in Philadelphia, just a short drive from Vineland. The couple moved themselves and their family—their 26-year-old daughter, Tig, and Iano’s father, Nick, who is ill and disabled, both live with them—to New Jersey to live in the house for the duration of Iano’s job. Willa knows that the house is run down, but the family manages to get settled nonetheless. This type of new start is familiar to the family, which has moved often over the course of Iano’s career—he finally earned tenure at a university in Virginia that recently closed.

Related Titles

By Barbara Kingsolver

SuperSummary Logo
Plot Summary
Barbara Kingsolver
Guide cover placeholder
SuperSummary Logo
Study Guide
Barbara Kingsolver
Guide cover image
SuperSummary Logo
Study Guide
Barbara Kingsolver
Guide cover image
SuperSummary Logo
Study Guide
Barbara Kingsolver
Guide cover image
SuperSummary Logo
Study Guide
Barbara Kingsolver
Guide cover image
SuperSummary Logo
Plot Summary
Barbara Kingsolver
Guide cover placeholder
SuperSummary Logo
Study Guide
Barbara Kingsolver
Guide cover image
SuperSummary Logo
Study Guide
Barbara Kingsolver
Guide cover image
SuperSummary Logo
Study Guide
Barbara Kingsolver
Guide cover image
SuperSummary Logo
STUDY + TEACHING GUIDE
Barbara Kingsolver
Guide cover image