Prodigal Summer

Prodigal Summer begins on a spring day as Deanna Wolfe, a Forest Service Ranger in the Zebulon National Forest in southern Appalachia, tracks a mysterious animal through the woods. Deanna has spent the past two years living alone in the forest, so she’s surprised to find a hunter watching her—though she does occasionally spy hunters, she always sees them first. This young man, who introduces himself as Eddie Bondo and carries a large rifle, has “stolen her advantage” by watching her unawares (3). Eddie is an “outsider” with “the northerner’s clipped i” (4) and is significantly younger than forty-something Deanna, but she’s attracted to him despite herself; he disappears quickly and leaves “a hot blush…burning on the skin of her neck” (6).  

Two days later, Deanna is again tracking this mysterious animal when Eddie appears without his gun and asks to follow her. She points out a bobcat trail rather than the canine tracks she’s interested in, and they walk together through the spring landscape, full of plant and animal life “fighting for…the kiss of pollen, a connection of sperm and egg and another chance” (9). Eddie tells her he knows she’s not looking for the bobcat, and she admits that she’s looking for coyotes; “keeping tabs on the predators” (11) will reveal the health of the entire ecosystem, and since

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