Blue Ridge Country January/February 2023 - 20

COUNTRY ROADS
BOOK NOTE
Prodigal Summer, by Barbara Kingsolver.
HarperCollins Publishers,
2000. 444 pp.
DOES 'DIRTY DANCING' EVER GET OLD?
New Shop Celebrates Movie
Virginia's Mountain Lake Lodge has opened Kellerman's Gift Shop,
replete with official 'Dirty Dancing' merchandise.
S
ome artistic works seem to hold on better
than others. So it seems with the movie
" Dirty Dancing, " released in 1987 and with
strong signs of life more than 35 years later.
One sign: Virginia's Mountain Lake Lodge,
scene of much of the filming of the movie,
has opened " the nation's first brick and
mortar store for official 'Dirty Dancing'
merchandise, " according to a press release
from the lodge, located in Pembroke.
Kellerman's Gift Shop-the name comes
from " Kellerman's Mountain House " in the
movie-features clothing and other items
in a store designed to mimic the studio
where the movie's star (Baby, as played by
Jennifer Grey) learned to dance.
Mountain Lake Lodge, located in a 2,600acre
nature preserve at an elevation of just
under 4,000 feet, also recently opened an
artisan shop called Salt Pond Living as well
as Salt Pond Pub, an open-air, walk-up pub.
The ever-filling or draining Mountain
Lake itself? It remains unpredictable and
intriguing, with history showing levels
tending to rise during winter and spring.
-KR
t's winter, and admit it: You're yearning
for the long days of summer.
You're thinking about the deep green
of the mountains and the bird calls, and
everything in thick bloom. There's no
better time to read Barbara Kingsolver's
" Prodigal Summer, " set in the Virginia
mountains and teeming with insects
and animals tangled in lush growth,
love and loss, creation and re-creation.
Kingsolver, educated as an evolutionary
biologist, is the rare writer who can mesh
great characters and engaging plot with
science and ecology. Reading " Prodigal
Summer, " you'll learn a lot
of plant and animal biology-and
also a lot about
people and their dreams and
yearnings.
I
New offerings at Mountain Lake Resort (top)
include a shop dedicated to merchandise
associated with the movie " Dirty Dancing "
(above).
The novel is told by three
characters in alternating chapters:
Deanna Wolfe, a wildlife
biologist whose chapters are
all titled " Predators " ; Garnett Walker, an
old native son who's determined to revive
the American chestnut tree (his chapters
aptly titled " Old Chestnuts " ); and Lusa
Landowski Widener, an entomologist
recently married into a large local family
and soon left with keeping the family farm
afloat, in " Moth Love " chapters.
What Kingsolver does so well is create
three characters who want something
large and concrete that they can champion
. . . and something unknown to
them until the end of summer. It would
be a real spoiler to lay all this out here. Just
know that when these characters are talking
about coyotes and chestnut trees or
baby goats and luna moths, their yearnings
lie much deeper, at heart-center.
The last chapter of " Prodigal Summer "
is a wonderful puzzle: Is Kingsolver writing
about a coyote or a human? Finally, in
the prodigal-summer world she's created,
it doesn't much matter.
On the long nights of winter, a book
brimful of green summer and procreative
hope can be a very good thing.
-JOAN VANNORSDALL
20 BLUERIDGECOUNTRY.COM
http://www.BLUERIDGECOUNTRY.COM
Blue Ridge Country January/February 2023

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