Barbara Kingsolver's Musical Novel
Pulitzer Prize winner Barbara Kingsolver returns with *Partita*, her first novel since *Demon Copperhead*. The book draws inspiration from classical music — a theme Kingsolver rarely addressed publicly during her Kentucky upbringing. This represents a fresh thematic direction for the acclaimed author.
While the novel is set in Kingsolver's familiar rural Appalachia, it centers on a onetime pianist named Livia Bohusz, who is haunted by her unfulfilled musical passion. This theme has deep personal roots for the author. Kingsolver herself attended DePauw University on a classical piano scholarship in the 1970s before changing her major to biology. She has said she believed she had little chance of making a career as a classical pianist and kept her love for composers like Bach to herself, feeling it didn't fit with her rural identity. In a statement, Kingsolver questioned the "rules" that suggest "small-town fiddlers and country music fans don't feel welcome in a symphony hall, and vice versa." The novel is described as being structured like a musical composition. *Partita* is scheduled for release on October 6, 2026. It follows her 2022 novel, *Demon Copperhead*, a modern retelling of Charles Dickens' *David Copperfield* set in Appalachia, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
