Unsheltered, by Barbara Kingsolver

“The simplest thing would be to tear it down,” the man said. “The house is a shambles.”

Thus begins Kingsolver’s ninth novel, set in 2016. Willa Knox and her husband Iano recently inherited the house in Vineland, New Jersey from her aunt and were glad to get it. Not long before, in their fifties, they had been enjoying the rewards of lives spent building their careers and launching their children. Then the magazine Willa wrote for folded, forcing her to go freelance, and the college where Ian...