54 pages • 1 hour read
High Tide in Tucson
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Themes
The Relationship Between Humans and the Natural World
Most of the essays in High Tide in Tucson explore humans’ place in a larger ecological context. This is sometimes achieved through direct comparison: In the titular essay, Kingsolver equates her transplantation to Arizona with that of the hermit crab Buster. She imagines herself as a crab, in the “shell” of her tiny car, setting out from Kentucky to an unknown future. Both Buster and Kingsolver manage to establish themselves in their new home and find a routine despite the unfamiliar surroundings. By the end of the book, both are still surviving and are each setting up for a new phase of life, Buster with his new skin and Kingsolver with her new husband.
In other essays, Kingsolver finds deeper connections, arguing that people are part of—not living in—the natural world. Key to Kingsolver is the concept of roots. For thousands of years, as human culture developed, people shaped their lives around the resources available in the specific places where they found themselves. These ancient humans occupied a niche like every other creature on the planet. For instance, the essay “Creation Myths” describes a cave of relics surrounding a miraculously formed pool in the middle of the desert, evidence of generations of inhabitants. In the modern era, though, humans have expanded their territory so much that it is now possible to live almost anywhere on earth. By doing this, humans have separated themselves from the rest of nature in such a profound way that they no longer imagine themselves as one with it. For example, in “The Memory Place,” residents of the Kentucky backcountry do not necessarily see it as special despite their use of it. Kingsolver believes that by re-establishing roots in specific places, humans can regain a connection to nature that has largely been lost.
The danger of losing the connection to nature can be seen in essays like “Infernal Paradise,” where Kingsolver paints a clear picture of humans’ ability to damage the natural world even in very remote locations. Instead of accepting their position as natural beings, people have come to dominate the rest of the living planet. Even in a hard to reach volcanic crater on a remote island, humanity’s influence has altered the course of nature so profoundly that the original flora and fauna can only be found in the tiny, ever more remote cliff sides. And even when Kingsolver reaches the native jungle at the heart of the crater, where some of the last several hundred native nēnē geese still live, she finds that humans have already co-opted the place: She stays in relative comfort in a Forest Service cabin. Humans may be animals at heart, but our ability to outcompete nearly every other species may ultimately cause our destruction.
The Changing Nature of Family
Kingsolver married her first husband very young, and imagined, as most people probably do, that she would spend her entire life with him. In 1992, though, shortly after returning from the Canary Islands, she found that her marriage was unsustainable and filed for divorce. She then spent many years as a single mother of her daughter Camille. High Tide in Tucson, which was published in 1995, reflects the turmoil of this period of Kingsolver’s life. She explores the theme of family on both a broad and personal level.
Accepted and nontraditional family structures are the central focus of the essay “Stone Soup,” which seeks to deconstruct the notion that some families are the norm and others are “broken.” Kingsolver contends that “traditional” can mean many different things, depending on the traditions to which one is referring; moreover, the US assumption that the mid-20th century norm of two married heterosexual parents in the small unit of the nuclear family reflects the standard is a deeply misinformed reading of history. In reality, typical family arrangements differ wildly through history; for example, in most cultures, the extended family is the base unit of a household. Finally, Kingsolver argues, divorce in itself does not render a family “broken”—usually the divorce is necessary because the final, fatal break has already happened.
Kingsolver also analyzes the generational differences that have shaped family relationships between the 1960s, when she grew up, and the 1990s, when her daughter is coming of age. “Life without Go-Go Boots” takes a more personal tack, comparing the parenting style of Kingsolver’s parents, whose commitment to their ideals of service meant Kingsolver had a hard time fitting into mainstream US middle school; she decides that she will do more to honor her daughter’s peer pressure-inspired needs. Broadening out her focus in the essay “Somebody’s Baby,” Kingsolver considers how the political and social realities of the United States have shaped how families grow and function. The 1960s are often characterized as more child-centered, but Kingsolver contends that this is mainly because many families at that time were able to have a stay-at-home parent (almost always a stay-at-home mom). Even though she, in the 1990s, has to divide her time between her work and her daughter, she does not see 1990s parenthood as less child-focused. It is simply different.
Ultimately, Kingsolver champions the idea that different does not mean worse when it comes to family. All kinds of family structures or relationships can be functional or dysfunctional. She believes that every family should be allowed to function in the way that works for that family, without judgment from society.
The Unpredictability of Life
Kingsolver’s third major theme is that life is unpredictable, and people should never assume that they know what will happen. Because of this, change and unexpected events are not always bad. Sometimes, like in “A Reluctant Rock Goddess,” unexpected and stressful circumstances can end up being fantastically fun, even life-altering. Kingsolver begins her rock journey assuming that it will never actually happen. When she does end up joining the band on a tour of the US, she starts out in a position of fear, but she slowly embraces her position as a newly minted keyboardist and ends up loving the journey so much that she volunteers to sing the somewhat difficult song “Dock of the Bay,” even if she can’t quite do it justice.
Kingsolver’s daughter Camille becomes a major symbol of life’s unpredictable nature, often surprises Kingsolver in mostly positive ways. In “Civil Disobedience at Breakfast,” Kingsolver struggles with Camille’s seemingly purposefully obstructionist behavior until she realizes that her daughter is insisting on her independence the only way she can—by resisting arbitrary rules. This unexpected shift in perspective allows Kingsolver to see her daughter with pride rather than resentment. Because parenthood is so unpredictable, Kingsolver finds ideas like a parenting license laughable—“Somebody’s Baby” argues that since no one could possibly know ahead of time who will turn out to be an unfit parent, no test could measure how well someone will raise a child. For one thing, there is no way to predict how the potential parent’s life will turn out.
In “Paradise Lost,” Kingsolver comes to terms with a paradox: Individual humans have very little influence on the future, but sometimes a tiny event can transform all the history that follows in unpredictable ways. Disillusioned by the rampant pro-war attitude in the United States, Kingsolver escapes to a foreign country. As she stands on a mountain top in the Canary Islands, thinking about colonial history while gazing at the African shore, she has the sudden realization that she IS powerless, and the thought causes her to break down laughing. History has been determined largely by random circumstances and unpredictable events, and no one can truly determine how anything will play out.
The book ends on the note that life is unpredictable. A passage in Kingsolver’s hermit crab care book warns that most hermit crabs die very suddenly, a phenomenon called the “mysterious croak.” She realizes that anyone has the potential to mysteriously croak, and that all that means is that she should live life while she is still alive.
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