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. With deeply compelling
characters, a vivid sense of place, and a clear grasp of how
history and public opinion can shape a life, Barbara
Kingsolver has created an unforgettable portrait of the
artist—and of art itself. The Lacuna is a rich and daring
work of literature, establishing its author as one of the
most provocative and important of her time.
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