The Lacuna

: I loved the vivid characterizations of real historical characters: Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo and Leo Trotsky. I also loved how she interspersed diaries and documents throughout the story.

: This is a wonderful read for anyone interested in Mexican artists in the thirties. Great descriptions of Mexico. Well-researched and insightful about the paranoia during the Red Scare of the fifties.

I love every book Barbara Kingsover writes, but this one is special for me because of its deeply personal account of key 20th-century political events.

Leon Trotsky and Frida Kahlo are at the centre of a story that juxtaposes Trotsky’s humanistic vision against the inhumanism of Stalin’s Soviet Union and McCarthyism in the United States. All of this is built around the character-driven narrative of a protagonist unwittingly caught up in the political churn of the times. 

I am a devoted fan of Barbara Kingsolver, and The Lacuna is my favorite of all her works.

The book follows the fascinating, tragic life of one Harrison Shepherd, born in the U.S. but raised in a series of fantastical situations in Mexico made believable by Kingsolver’s unique skill. Shepherd’s brushes with fame and history reveal much about the character of Mexico and that of the United States.

He is brutally caught up in the nationalist, paranoid fears of both countries’ governments and the even wilder judgments of public opinion. A thrilling, artful read.

Kingsolver is such a brilliant writer—she deals with weighty themes, but always with an emotional heart. This doorstop of a novel features real historical characters and events, but with a fictional American protagonist: Harrison Shepherd. Shepherd is raised in Mexico by his Mexican mother, works for Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, and meets Trotsky. When he returns to post-WW2 America, he finds a paranoid society—the McCarthy communist witch-hunts are underway, and Harrison, a novelist, is caught up in them. The story becomes enveloped in a sense of suffocation, as Harrison’s neighbours turn against him, and FBI agents hound… show more.