Monthly Archives: September 2010

Summary from GoodReads:

In her most accomplished novel, Barbara Kingsolver takes us on an epic journey from the Mexico City of artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo to the America of Pearl Harbor, FDR, and J. Edgar Hoover. The Lacuna is a poignant story of a man pulled between two nations as they invent their modern identities.

Born in the United States, reared in a series of provisional households in Mexico—from a coastal island jungle to 1930s Mexico City—Harrison Shepherd finds precarious shelter but no sense of home on his thrilling odyssey. Life is whatever he learns from housekeepers who put him to work in the kitchen, errands he runs in the streets, and one fateful day, by mixing plaster for famed Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. He discovers a passion for Aztec history and meets the exotic, imperious artist Frida Kahlo, who will become his lifelong friend. When he goes to work for Lev Trotsky, an exiled political leader fighting for his life, Shepherd inadvertently casts his lot with art and revolution, newspaper headlines and howling gossip, and a risk of terrible violence.

Meanwhile, to the north, the United States will soon be caught up in the internationalist goodwill of World War II. There in the land of his birth, Shepherd believes he might remake himself in America’s hopeful image and claim a voice of his own. He finds support from an unlikely kindred soul, his stenographer, Mrs. Brown, who will be far more valuable to her employer than he could ever know. Through darkening years, political winds continue to toss him between north and south in a plot that turns many times on the unspeakable breach—the lacuna—between truth and public presumption.

My Review:

I have a confession to make.  I didn’t know most of the names this book was about.  Serves me right – I should have read the back of the book, no?

Not only that.. this was a “steak” of a book.  Generally when I read, I read dessert books or nice, comforting bread-type books.  It’s very rare I pick up a book and have to actually chew my way through it.  Does that mean I didn’t enjoy it? Not at all.  Just.. that I finished it late on Monday and am still processing my thoughts on it.

Here is what I can tell you about my experience with The Lacuna.  Beautiful writing, interesting, compelling story.  I’d heard of Frida Kahlo (briefly .. through a movie that I vaguely recall) and enjoyed getting to know more about her character.  But the part of the story I enjoyed the most was actually in the first part of the book.  There’s a section where Harrison, the boy, begins to make plaster for a bear of an artist.  He crafts the plaster like he’s been taught to craft a delicate dough mixture and is praised for it.. earning a pet name as a result.

I loved this section and read through it slowly, both the before and after of the scene.  My imagination went crazy with the images and I could see and hear and taste what Harrison was living.

I wish I could give this book the review it deserves.  Maybe, in a week after I’ve had an opportunity to thoroughly think things through I’ll do a review part deux.  It’s such a shame I cannot do it justice, but.. like a good steak, I want to enjoy the lingering taste and the satisfied, full stomach that is the after-effect of such an incredible meal.

About the Author

Barbara Kingsolver was born in 1955, and grew up in rural Kentucky. She earned degrees in biology from DePauw University and the University of Arizona, and has worked as a freelance writer and author since 1985. At various times in her adult life she has lived in England, France, and the Canary Islands, and has worked in Europe, Africa, Asia, Mexico, and South America. She spent two decades in Tucson, Arizona, before moving to southwestern Virginia where she currently resides.

Her books, in order of publication, are: The Bean Trees (1988), Homeland (1989),Holding the Line: Women in the Great Arizona Mine Strike (1989), Animal Dreams (1990),Another America (1992), Pigs in Heaven (1993), High Tide in Tucson (1995), The Poisonwood Bible (1998), Prodigal Summer (2000), Small Wonder (2002), Last Stand: America’s Virgin Lands, with photographer Annie Griffiths Belt (2002), Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life (2007), and The Lacuna (2009). She served as editor for Best American Short Stories 2001. Her books have been translated into more than two dozen languages, and have been adopted into the core literature curriculum in high schools and colleges throughout the nation. She has contributed to more than fifty literary anthologies, and her reviews and articles have appeared in most major U.S. newspapers and magazines. Click here to view complete bibliography.

You can visit Barbara Kingsolver at her blog here.

For more reviews of the Barbara Kingsolver’s books, please follow the book tour.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from TLC Book Tours. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”