Where It All Goes Down
Setting:Tucson, Arizona (mostly)
Taylor begins her life in the fictional Pittman County, Kentucky, which Barbara Kingsolver has described as resembling "any number of small towns in east-central Kentucky," where she herself grew up.
That being said, the primary setting of the novel is Tucson, Arizona. Taylor likes to think that destiny played a part in her landing there, because that's where her beat-up old Volkswagen finally breaks down, but we readers know better.
Arizona's desert landscape is the perfect symbolic setting for the lessons Taylor learns through raising Turtle. Even though life itself can sometimes be as dry and thorny as a cactus in a drought, The Bean Trees suggests that a child can always thrive if she has enough love and community to support and nourish her.