Flight Behavior

The protagonist of the novel, Dellarobia Turnbow, is trapped in a loveless marriage to a husband she doesn’t respect and in-laws who have never accepted her into their family. She married Cub Turnbow at age seventeen, when she became pregnant; however, the baby was miscarried months later. Eleven years on, the book begins with Dellarobia climbing up the path to the family’s farmland to have an affair only to see a valley and forest full of butterflies. This vision opens the door to a new life for Dellarobia, a life where she can fully recognize her abilities and dreams, but at a cost that she ultimately deems worth the pain. 

The advent of the butterflies and the mystery of why they have interrupted their usual flight behavior to end up roosting on the Turnbows’ land in rural Tennessee echoes the realization that Dellarobia understands by the end of the novel: a species’ true nature just is, and that nature, while at times confused by changes in its surrounding environment, never wavers. For eleven years, Dellarobia has smothered her natural inklings, motivations, and personality in an attempt to fit a mold that is the

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