But much more than that. She artfully advocates the causes of The People (to which our government pays lip service while serving the corporations and the wealthy, like most governments) by bringing to life Trotsky and family taking refuge in Mexico and his assassination by a Stalinist agent, the McCarthy anti-communist campaign and throughout the damnable role played by yellow journalism, the unfairness of war waged by the rich and powerful but suffered by the poor soldiers and their families,all cleverly conveyed by a writer who purports to be writing non-political Mexican historical novels. She also brings to life Diego Rivera and his artist wife and the naive hopes of the world communist movement, corrupted by Stalin and demonized by the Cold War and McCarthyism.

Kingsolver artfully speaks to our time while purporting to be writing history.

Throughot it is Ines who copes with the survival needs of the colonists from food to medical aid while the men tend fo battles and politics.  The unbelievable hardships of these new world invaders as well as the tribes they exterminate is made clear as well as the ruthless warring of the Pizarro brothers in Peru.

All new to me were the insights into the Cilean revolution and brutal suppression abetted by our CIA assassination of legitimate reform presiident Allende. Also the bigotry of the Chilean upper classes toward the lower.

This is also the end-of-life story of an 83-year old woman, Ursula Bowles,  with whom I could relate. And there is an appealing  ending for a divorced woman who is surprised by a happy reunion with her ex-husband.

It is astonishing how quickly New York City, for example, would crumble, due to the ever- present threat of flooding in its understructures.  On the other hand, it is horrifying how many eons would have to pass before nuclear and plastic contaminants would be absorbed or by-passed.

Minute amounts of petro-plastic have permeated the ocean and entered the  food chain all the way from micro-organisms to humans.  As a species we are poisoning ourselves as well as our environment.

One almost wishes for a virus or other factor that would cut the impossibly burgeoning population down to manageable size.  Most hopeful, perhaps, are his figures showing that limiting the birth rate to one child per family would fairly quickly accomplish that….but how to convince the earthly religious and ignorant masses of that necessity?

The bleak alternative is the eventual extinction of our species following an ever more miserable struggle to survive on a dying planet.

Water dog is a nickname for their pet  Labrador  as well as  the father and three children of this family, the latter trying to heal themselves of the sudden loss by heart attack  of their much loved father and biathlon coach. The title fits the setting on the shore of the wintry ocean from and around which so many of the inhabitants make their living.

With the help of friends and despite the malign intentions of an invidious small town cop,  the three young people make progress toward maturity.

The man going by the name of James Watson Bolsover is a self-educated mechanical engineer who has read widely not only in his field but also in literature, physics and philosophy.  His recollections tell us the intimate and touching story of the delicate, dark-haired, passionate but somewhat obsessive  girl whom he loved passionately until her death after twenty years of married life.

We see that his is an unusually sensitive, creative and inquiring mind and we share his insights into human interactions and the role that chance plays in their destinies.