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The Lacuna
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.
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.
508 pages, Hardcover
First published November 3, 2009
About the author
Barbara Kingsolver
78 books23.3k followersBarbara 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 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 (2002), Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life (2007), The Lacuna (2009), Flight Behavior (2012), Unsheltered (2018), How To Fly (In 10,000 Easy Lessons) (2020), Demon Copperhead (2022), and coauthored with Lily Kingsolver, Coyote's Wild Home (2023). She served as editor for Best American Short Stories 2001.
Kingsolver was named one the most important writers of the 20th Century by Writers Digest, and in 2023 won a Pulitzer Prize for her novel Demon Copperhead. In 2000 she received the National Humanities Medal, our country’s highest honor for service through the arts. Her books have been translated into more than thirty languages and have been adopted into the core curriculum in high schools and colleges throughout the nation. Critical acclaim for her work includes multiple awards from the American Booksellers Association and the American Library Association, a James Beard award, two-time Oprah Book Club selection, and the national book award of South Africa, among others. She was awarded Britain's prestigious Women's Prize for Fiction (formerly the Orange Prize) for both Demon Copperhead and The Lacuna, making Kingsolver the first author in the history of the prize to win it twice. In 2011, Kingsolver was awarded the Dayton Literary Peace Prize for the body of her work. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
She has two daughters, Camille (born in 1987) and Lily (1996). She and her husband, Steven Hopp, live on a farm in southern Appalachia where they raise an extensive vegetable garden and Icelandic sheep.
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 (2002), Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life (2007), The Lacuna (2009), Flight Behavior (2012), Unsheltered (2018), How To Fly (In 10,000 Easy Lessons) (2020), Demon Copperhead (2022), and coauthored with Lily Kingsolver, Coyote's Wild Home (2023). She served as editor for Best American Short Stories 2001.
Kingsolver was named one the most important writers of the 20th Century by Writers Digest, and in 2023 won a Pulitzer Prize for her novel Demon Copperhead. In 2000 she received the National Humanities Medal, our country’s highest honor for service through the arts. Her books have been translated into more than thirty languages and have been adopted into the core curriculum in high schools and colleges throughout the nation. Critical acclaim for her work includes multiple awards from the American Booksellers Association and the American Library Association, a James Beard award, two-time Oprah Book Club selection, and the national book award of South Africa, among others. She was awarded Britain's prestigious Women's Prize for Fiction (formerly the Orange Prize) for both Demon Copperhead and The Lacuna, making Kingsolver the first author in the history of the prize to win it twice. In 2011, Kingsolver was awarded the Dayton Literary Peace Prize for the body of her work. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
She has two daughters, Camille (born in 1987) and Lily (1996). She and her husband, Steven Hopp, live on a farm in southern Appalachia where they raise an extensive vegetable garden and Icelandic sheep.
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April 25, 2024
The Lacuna is really two books. One, the latter, is quite engaging, with a well-written historical perspective, emotional content, a bit of action. The other is an overlong back story, very light on involvement, written as if the author was watching the events and characters from behind a cloud. Considering that the stable of characters includes Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, it takes some effort to make them dull.
Barbara Kingsolver - image from OfficeOnline.com
The Lacuna is Kingsolver having a go at the grand historical novel. She begins in 1929 in Mexico, introducing Harrison William Shepherd, son of an American father and a Mexican mother, as a young lad dragged along by mom to live with her boyfriend on an island off the Mexican coast. We follow him through adolescence, through his association with Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, Leon Trotsky and a host of lesser characters. He connects briefly with his father in Washington DC and is enrolled in a private academy where latent interests come to the fore.
My favorite passage in the book occurs then, a thrilling scene of MacArthur and Patton attacking American WW I veterans who were demanding the payment that had been promised to them for their participation in World War I, the Bonus Army. Things do not become compelling again until many years later when Shepherd moves to North Carolina and begins his literary career. We first meet the wonderful, warm, Violet Brown there and it is her energy as much as Shepherd’s that carries us through to the end. That journey includes a chilling look at the McCarthy era, one that carries far too much resonance of today’s psycho-right. That works very well.
The methodology here is to present archivist notes from Violet Brown, excerpts from HWS’ journals and letters to and from him from other characters. The varying voices work well.
There is much beautiful writing here, rich imagery. And Kingsolver works her title, finding relevant lacunae images in lava tubes, blank spaces on a page and a part of Chichen Itza that is called the “mouth of the world,” among others. I was impressed by her comparison of the Bonus Army battle with the Spaniards’ attacks on New World locals several centuries prior.
Overall The Lacuna is a good book that could have been much better with significant editing. It makes one wonder if Kingsolver has enough juice to reject a demand for editing, a la Stephen King. If so, she should rethink that position. Even though there is worthwhile historical content within, and although it is very engaging in parts, The Lacuna is rather dull for far too much of its five-hundred-plus pages, which constitutes a rather glaring hole.
=============================EXTRA STUFF
The author’s personal site
Reviews of other Kingsolver books
-----Unsheltered
-----Flight Behavior
-----The Poisonwood Bible
Barbara Kingsolver - image from OfficeOnline.com
The Lacuna is Kingsolver having a go at the grand historical novel. She begins in 1929 in Mexico, introducing Harrison William Shepherd, son of an American father and a Mexican mother, as a young lad dragged along by mom to live with her boyfriend on an island off the Mexican coast. We follow him through adolescence, through his association with Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, Leon Trotsky and a host of lesser characters. He connects briefly with his father in Washington DC and is enrolled in a private academy where latent interests come to the fore.
My favorite passage in the book occurs then, a thrilling scene of MacArthur and Patton attacking American WW I veterans who were demanding the payment that had been promised to them for their participation in World War I, the Bonus Army. Things do not become compelling again until many years later when Shepherd moves to North Carolina and begins his literary career. We first meet the wonderful, warm, Violet Brown there and it is her energy as much as Shepherd’s that carries us through to the end. That journey includes a chilling look at the McCarthy era, one that carries far too much resonance of today’s psycho-right. That works very well.
The methodology here is to present archivist notes from Violet Brown, excerpts from HWS’ journals and letters to and from him from other characters. The varying voices work well.
There is much beautiful writing here, rich imagery. And Kingsolver works her title, finding relevant lacunae images in lava tubes, blank spaces on a page and a part of Chichen Itza that is called the “mouth of the world,” among others. I was impressed by her comparison of the Bonus Army battle with the Spaniards’ attacks on New World locals several centuries prior.
Overall The Lacuna is a good book that could have been much better with significant editing. It makes one wonder if Kingsolver has enough juice to reject a demand for editing, a la Stephen King. If so, she should rethink that position. Even though there is worthwhile historical content within, and although it is very engaging in parts, The Lacuna is rather dull for far too much of its five-hundred-plus pages, which constitutes a rather glaring hole.
=============================EXTRA STUFF
The author’s personal site
Reviews of other Kingsolver books
-----Unsheltered
-----Flight Behavior
-----The Poisonwood Bible
December 21, 2009
I hated this book. I couldn't even finish it. I started it and had so much trouble reading it that I put it down and didn't even want to pick it back up. Curious, I went to Goodreads to see what other people had said about it. Surprisingly, a lot of people loved it. A couple of people couldn't finish it, but the majority gave it good reviews. So I thought I'd give it another try. Ugh. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out its appeal!!
I just Googled it and found a NPR review that made me feel much better. It calls it Barbara Kingsolver's disappointing return, and uses the title to epitomize what's wrong with the book. As NPR says, "Lacuna refers to a gap or something that's absent. The motif of the crucial missing piece runs throughout the novel, but the thing unintentionally missing here is an engaging main character." Yes, that's it exactly.
This book is about Harrison Shepherd, but at the beginning, he's referred to as The boy, so I was immediately distanced from him. And then I was reading about him from his diaries. And all along, it just was not interesting. Apparently he's famous later on and meets famous people like Diego Riviera, Frida Kahlo and Lev Trotsky, but the book is just so friggin' BORING!!!!
I just Googled it and found a NPR review that made me feel much better. It calls it Barbara Kingsolver's disappointing return, and uses the title to epitomize what's wrong with the book. As NPR says, "Lacuna refers to a gap or something that's absent. The motif of the crucial missing piece runs throughout the novel, but the thing unintentionally missing here is an engaging main character." Yes, that's it exactly.
This book is about Harrison Shepherd, but at the beginning, he's referred to as The boy, so I was immediately distanced from him. And then I was reading about him from his diaries. And all along, it just was not interesting. Apparently he's famous later on and meets famous people like Diego Riviera, Frida Kahlo and Lev Trotsky, but the book is just so friggin' BORING!!!!
July 4, 2012
The story is told as the collected journals of Harrison Shepherd, put together after his death by his secretary and friend Violet Brown. Beginning with his childhood, (just before WorldWar2), as his mexican mother leaves his american father and takes him with her back to mexico. Harrison writes his journals because he can't help but write, like other people cannot help breathing, he is destined to become an author one day.
Harrison's childhood is surreally beautiful, the problems of his chain-smoking, gold digging mother are distant. His journals are all in the 3rd person, nothing ever happens directly to Harrison. It's like looking at everything from underwater.
Harrison gets a job mixing plaster for the famous mexican muralist Diego Rivera and his wife Frieda Kahlo. which gradually turns into a job as a cook, and then also a secretary. Then the exiled Lev Trotsky arrives, taken into the houshold of the Riveras, and Harrison can't help but be a part of the revolution, even so he is still always on the outside, an observer, written in the 3rd person.
In the second half of the novel, back in America, Harrison finally begins to use the personal pronoun, I. No longer talking about himself in the 3rd person, he finally owns his own words, and talks directly about himself. Yet somehow he is grown distant, like letters from a child hood friend that you grew apart from. I find it harder to connect with Harrison now, which is ironic. But it leaves space to be covered over with by the political upheaval in America. Harrison's personal life seems to happen far in the background, while in front of us the FBI and the Un-American commitee are hunting down communist sympathisers. I feel bad now for every silly joking utterance of 'bloody commies', because I never meant it, and I never realised how real it once was. I feel like I've never paid attention in history class.
Theres a horribly real feeling of suffocation in this second half of the novel, neighbours turning against him, his readers turning against him, no matter how much they loved his first 2 books, now they believe any lies printed in the newspapers. The same happening to hundreds of US citizens, once they're labeled as communists, they're done for, no matter who they really are or what they really said. But it could easily be happening today. Replace the word 'communist' with the word 'terrorist', and this could be America today. It could be britain and any non mainstream political party - the British national party for instance, once the papers label you as a BNP supporter, you're demonised.
Violet Brown reminds us, when we're already well over 100 pages into the novel, that these are the private journals of a dead man who never wanted them published. And that we should stop reading if we want to respect his wishes. I almost stopped reading. It was hard to remember that the book is fiction. In fact that should be hard to remember, it should be, because in truth, in the end, it wasn't fiction. This is the most important thing about it. Harrison Shepherd and Violet Brown may never have existed, but these events too place, these things happened to someone. These things still happen to other people now, under other names and guises. It's not fiction. And that is the scariest thing about it.
Harrison's childhood is surreally beautiful, the problems of his chain-smoking, gold digging mother are distant. His journals are all in the 3rd person, nothing ever happens directly to Harrison. It's like looking at everything from underwater.
Harrison gets a job mixing plaster for the famous mexican muralist Diego Rivera and his wife Frieda Kahlo. which gradually turns into a job as a cook, and then also a secretary. Then the exiled Lev Trotsky arrives, taken into the houshold of the Riveras, and Harrison can't help but be a part of the revolution, even so he is still always on the outside, an observer, written in the 3rd person.
In the second half of the novel, back in America, Harrison finally begins to use the personal pronoun, I. No longer talking about himself in the 3rd person, he finally owns his own words, and talks directly about himself. Yet somehow he is grown distant, like letters from a child hood friend that you grew apart from. I find it harder to connect with Harrison now, which is ironic. But it leaves space to be covered over with by the political upheaval in America. Harrison's personal life seems to happen far in the background, while in front of us the FBI and the Un-American commitee are hunting down communist sympathisers. I feel bad now for every silly joking utterance of 'bloody commies', because I never meant it, and I never realised how real it once was. I feel like I've never paid attention in history class.
"Whenever I hear thing kind of thing," he said, "a person speaking about constitutional rights, free speech, and so forth, I think, 'how can he be such a sap? Now I can be sure that man is a Red.' A word to the wise, Mr. Shepherd. We just do not hear a real American speaking in that Manner."
Theres a horribly real feeling of suffocation in this second half of the novel, neighbours turning against him, his readers turning against him, no matter how much they loved his first 2 books, now they believe any lies printed in the newspapers. The same happening to hundreds of US citizens, once they're labeled as communists, they're done for, no matter who they really are or what they really said. But it could easily be happening today. Replace the word 'communist' with the word 'terrorist', and this could be America today. It could be britain and any non mainstream political party - the British national party for instance, once the papers label you as a BNP supporter, you're demonised.
Violet Brown reminds us, when we're already well over 100 pages into the novel, that these are the private journals of a dead man who never wanted them published. And that we should stop reading if we want to respect his wishes. I almost stopped reading. It was hard to remember that the book is fiction. In fact that should be hard to remember, it should be, because in truth, in the end, it wasn't fiction. This is the most important thing about it. Harrison Shepherd and Violet Brown may never have existed, but these events too place, these things happened to someone. These things still happen to other people now, under other names and guises. It's not fiction. And that is the scariest thing about it.
May 19, 2011
I had the privilege of listening to Kingsolver read this aloud as well as reading the print...I love her. Her voice and her style of narration, her perfectly articulated words and sounds all captivated me instantly. Hearing V.B.'s voice as Kingsolver intended it is what made me want to just hug Violet Brown. The characters were so lovable (even though I'd never want to hang out with Harrison or Violet in real life, but Trotsky definitely).
I have heard people say that this book had a political agenda. I have to disagree. I believe that this novel, although centered around politics, is about humans, while politics never seem to be. This novel did not turn me into a socialist, a communist, an anti-communist, or a hater of capitalism, but it did make me want to embrace all kinds of people. It made me yearn to learn more about and to listen to people I don't know, and especially those that I think "I know about." Because I don't really. The best part about someone is that which you don't know. Thinking about that recurring message in the novel has impacted me. For reals.
This novel showed me about:
McCarthyism: how could we force people to value our government over theirs by silencing, condemning, and violating all of the personal freedoms that make our country so great?
The Bonus Army: How did I learn about this terrible event in high school (I had to have, right?) without remembering it? It's seared into my consciousness now...
Having your words used against you
Being a writer
Being a private person
Trotsky & Stalin
Stupid American slang from the 20's-50's.
Being gay when hardly anyone around you thinks that is okay
Censorship & other oppressive behavior
Artists, especially Frida & Diego
A lot of ancient Mexican history
Integrity
My favorites (I'm being vague so as not to spoil the plot)
a) when a character protested a violating probe by invoking our personal rights guaranteed to Americans, and the agent responded with something to the effect of, "No American talks like that; that's how I know you're a communist." HA! I don't think this is true anymore, and I'm hoping that we'll be a little less inclined to McCarthyism-type witch hunting in the future.
b) The metaphorical images in the first chapter and what they came to symbolize
c) The strong women (Frida & VB)
d) Lev
e) The subtlety
f) The statement that a rule of the media is to fill the silence, keep talking, whether it's true or not. Sounds familiar.
g) Barbara Kingsolver's voices when she reads aloud.
h) The ending.
I have to thank my local library for pushing me to read this by selecting it for book club. I would have really missed out on some opportunity to grow as a person had I not dived into the lacuna.
I have heard people say that this book had a political agenda. I have to disagree. I believe that this novel, although centered around politics, is about humans, while politics never seem to be. This novel did not turn me into a socialist, a communist, an anti-communist, or a hater of capitalism, but it did make me want to embrace all kinds of people. It made me yearn to learn more about and to listen to people I don't know, and especially those that I think "I know about." Because I don't really. The best part about someone is that which you don't know. Thinking about that recurring message in the novel has impacted me. For reals.
This novel showed me about:
McCarthyism: how could we force people to value our government over theirs by silencing, condemning, and violating all of the personal freedoms that make our country so great?
The Bonus Army: How did I learn about this terrible event in high school (I had to have, right?) without remembering it? It's seared into my consciousness now...
Having your words used against you
Being a writer
Being a private person
Trotsky & Stalin
Stupid American slang from the 20's-50's.
Being gay when hardly anyone around you thinks that is okay
Censorship & other oppressive behavior
Artists, especially Frida & Diego
A lot of ancient Mexican history
Integrity
My favorites (I'm being vague so as not to spoil the plot)
a) when a character protested a violating probe by invoking our personal rights guaranteed to Americans, and the agent responded with something to the effect of, "No American talks like that; that's how I know you're a communist." HA! I don't think this is true anymore, and I'm hoping that we'll be a little less inclined to McCarthyism-type witch hunting in the future.
b) The metaphorical images in the first chapter and what they came to symbolize
c) The strong women (Frida & VB)
d) Lev
e) The subtlety
f) The statement that a rule of the media is to fill the silence, keep talking, whether it's true or not. Sounds familiar.
g) Barbara Kingsolver's voices when she reads aloud.
h) The ending.
I have to thank my local library for pushing me to read this by selecting it for book club. I would have really missed out on some opportunity to grow as a person had I not dived into the lacuna.
April 8, 2019
I don't give a book the 5 stars without much consideration. This author's beautiful language and the things she taught me make Lacuna very special to me.
I found myself in the bright and colorful world of Frida Kahlo's Mexico, and the gloomy sphere of the iron curtain and our country's disturbing consequences of McCarthyism. A real work of art that took me away from my cozy home.
It's not a quick read or one you can put down without considering all the circumstances of all the main characters. Hope and hopelessness, truth and misinformation are always present . Kingsolver requires you to think and search your heart and soul. I can't wait to discuss this book.
I found myself in the bright and colorful world of Frida Kahlo's Mexico, and the gloomy sphere of the iron curtain and our country's disturbing consequences of McCarthyism. A real work of art that took me away from my cozy home.
It's not a quick read or one you can put down without considering all the circumstances of all the main characters. Hope and hopelessness, truth and misinformation are always present . Kingsolver requires you to think and search your heart and soul. I can't wait to discuss this book.
June 25, 2010
Placed in context with Kingsolver's other books this is essentially worthless. She turns Freida Kahlo into the most magical pixie dream girl ever and gives us a main character so thoroughly desexed and generally grey that one sort of imagines him as a Ken doll, completely generic and non-threating in every possible way. And I KNOW that's sort of the point of the main character, but still, he is pretty much one of the least enjoyable protagonists I've ever read since all you do is spend time with his guilt and boring unhappiness.
Additionally, and you may not have known this, brace yourselves, but the House Un-American Activities Committee was BAD (NOOOooooooo I've blown your mind!!). Also bad: newspapers and media. Good? Trotsky and NOTHING ELSE. Especially Americans, unless you are a hillperson. I do admire how with the Violet Brown character Kingsolver has reconfigured the Noble Savage idea (and yet it still offends me!), maybe in these kinds of cases we could call it the Magical Hillbilly?
Oh, and just so I am not coming off as some kind of dumbass "America: Love it or Leave it" type I have no problem when American wrongdoings such as the internment/concentration camps for Japanese or the aforementioned Committee are rightfully brought to task, but it almost offends me when its done so lazily and without even the slightest attempt to think about why these things happened beyond "most Americans are sheep who like to buy stuff".
ETA (Man I just keep on thinking of things to dislike about this book): Her use of slang! Oh. My. GOD. Apparently someone issued Ms. Kingsolver an urban dictionary of the 30s-50s with the challenge of using every phrase in it, no matter the fact that when people do use slang they don't use all of it at once. About 60% of the characters sounded like parodies of people from their eras (see: The mother, Salome-I-don't-know-how-to-type-accents).
Additionally, and you may not have known this, brace yourselves, but the House Un-American Activities Committee was BAD (NOOOooooooo I've blown your mind!!). Also bad: newspapers and media. Good? Trotsky and NOTHING ELSE. Especially Americans, unless you are a hillperson. I do admire how with the Violet Brown character Kingsolver has reconfigured the Noble Savage idea (and yet it still offends me!), maybe in these kinds of cases we could call it the Magical Hillbilly?
Oh, and just so I am not coming off as some kind of dumbass "America: Love it or Leave it" type I have no problem when American wrongdoings such as the internment/concentration camps for Japanese or the aforementioned Committee are rightfully brought to task, but it almost offends me when its done so lazily and without even the slightest attempt to think about why these things happened beyond "most Americans are sheep who like to buy stuff".
ETA (Man I just keep on thinking of things to dislike about this book): Her use of slang! Oh. My. GOD. Apparently someone issued Ms. Kingsolver an urban dictionary of the 30s-50s with the challenge of using every phrase in it, no matter the fact that when people do use slang they don't use all of it at once. About 60% of the characters sounded like parodies of people from their eras (see: The mother, Salome-I-don't-know-how-to-type-accents).
January 9, 2014
About a week before I started reading Lacuna, my friend asked me when I thought Barbara Kingsolver was going to write a gay character. Little did we know...
The fascinating part of Shepherd's homosexuality, of his entire character really, is how it is revealed. Slowly, carefully, the way we had to peel away the thinest possible onion skins to put on slides in my 6th grade science class. Most of this story is told through Shepherd's journal entries, entries in which the pronoun "I" is notably lacking. It's through his descriptions of everyone and everything around him that we come to know our protagonist. A delicate business, Babs, but one you do so well.
For those enamored with Kingsolver's lyrical prose, this latest (and greatest) work might be a bit of a stretch. Shepherd is a poet and though his journals often reflect that, the book is presented as a collection of "nonfiction" journal entries, newspaper articles, and archivist's notes. Kingsolver bats her character (and reader) from Frieda and Diego's Mexican ranch house, to Trotsky in hiding, to the McCarthy trials in America. This ambitious work covers art, politics, and social history in a comprehensive and thoroughly palatable way. Reading the fictive life of Shepherd and company set against the backdrop of actual history was like reading a textbook with the people and places come to life.
Of course, attention must be given to the relationship between Shepherd and his assistant Mrs. Brown. Sometimes the most perfect love affair is purely platonic. Or is it? Complicated and fascinating.
It's a brick of a book, so start lifting weights now. And sometimes it dragged. (I skimmed over some of the newspaper articles, I'll admit it.) But I fell in love with Shepherd and my heart was with his all the way through. I genuinely cared what happened to him and turning the page was never a question. I closed the book wishing there really was a writer named Harrison Shepherd. Brilliant, all around.
The fascinating part of Shepherd's homosexuality, of his entire character really, is how it is revealed. Slowly, carefully, the way we had to peel away the thinest possible onion skins to put on slides in my 6th grade science class. Most of this story is told through Shepherd's journal entries, entries in which the pronoun "I" is notably lacking. It's through his descriptions of everyone and everything around him that we come to know our protagonist. A delicate business, Babs, but one you do so well.
For those enamored with Kingsolver's lyrical prose, this latest (and greatest) work might be a bit of a stretch. Shepherd is a poet and though his journals often reflect that, the book is presented as a collection of "nonfiction" journal entries, newspaper articles, and archivist's notes. Kingsolver bats her character (and reader) from Frieda and Diego's Mexican ranch house, to Trotsky in hiding, to the McCarthy trials in America. This ambitious work covers art, politics, and social history in a comprehensive and thoroughly palatable way. Reading the fictive life of Shepherd and company set against the backdrop of actual history was like reading a textbook with the people and places come to life.
Of course, attention must be given to the relationship between Shepherd and his assistant Mrs. Brown. Sometimes the most perfect love affair is purely platonic. Or is it? Complicated and fascinating.
It's a brick of a book, so start lifting weights now. And sometimes it dragged. (I skimmed over some of the newspaper articles, I'll admit it.) But I fell in love with Shepherd and my heart was with his all the way through. I genuinely cared what happened to him and turning the page was never a question. I closed the book wishing there really was a writer named Harrison Shepherd. Brilliant, all around.
November 4, 2009
Yep, Barbara Kingsolver does it again, with a book that almost demands that you keep reading. This is the story of Harrison William Shepherd, the son of a Mexican mother, and an American father. The father is indifferent to the boy, and his mother longs for romance and adventure, so she returns to Mexico with the boy.
The book is written as if it is a diary or journal of Harrison's life from his earliest memories. He details his life in Mexico, where through a series of events, he becomes the cook in the household of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. Later, Leo Trotsky comes to stay when he is thrown out of Stalinist Russia. Harrison's life becomes entwined with that of these three characters, which makes for fascinating reading.
As an adult, he eventually returns to America, where his books about Mexican history become best sellers. However, when the House Committee on Un-American Activities starts up, he is called to testify because they believe he is a member of the Communist Party. Having always been a private person, this causes him a great deal of anguish, and leads to his decision which ends the book.
I found this to be a really riveting read, both for the story, and because it is not always clear who is really telling the story. The description of life in the Kahlo-Rivera household, as well as the personality of Leo Trotsky and his wife made it especially interesting to me. I also learned more about the history of Mexico than I ever expected to!
I recommend this book if you don't mind stories that take a while to tell. Even small details turn out to be important, and at least in my opinion, I didn't want to finish reading the book and have the story end.
The book is written as if it is a diary or journal of Harrison's life from his earliest memories. He details his life in Mexico, where through a series of events, he becomes the cook in the household of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. Later, Leo Trotsky comes to stay when he is thrown out of Stalinist Russia. Harrison's life becomes entwined with that of these three characters, which makes for fascinating reading.
As an adult, he eventually returns to America, where his books about Mexican history become best sellers. However, when the House Committee on Un-American Activities starts up, he is called to testify because they believe he is a member of the Communist Party. Having always been a private person, this causes him a great deal of anguish, and leads to his decision which ends the book.
I found this to be a really riveting read, both for the story, and because it is not always clear who is really telling the story. The description of life in the Kahlo-Rivera household, as well as the personality of Leo Trotsky and his wife made it especially interesting to me. I also learned more about the history of Mexico than I ever expected to!
I recommend this book if you don't mind stories that take a while to tell. Even small details turn out to be important, and at least in my opinion, I didn't want to finish reading the book and have the story end.
February 2, 2019
Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, Mexico, Leo Trotsky, Committee on Unamerican Activities: The Lacuna is a wealth of information on these topics. But it's outstanding feature is it's narrator, Harrison Shepherd; Mexican/American, cook, sometime secretary, novelist and gay. Kingsolver's wonderful telling of his tale and those whose lives cross his path is insightful, humorous and full of pathos. I was, by turn, amused then saddened by his story; Harrison may have been a fictional character but many lives were shattered by the Committee on UnAmerican Activities and Edgar J Hoover and his band of merry men and those activities.
A HUGE thank you to Sally Howes for recommending this fine tome. This novel would be a good place for Kingsolver beginner to start and a great place for her fans to continue reading her magical novels. 4.5★
A HUGE thank you to Sally Howes for recommending this fine tome. This novel would be a good place for Kingsolver beginner to start and a great place for her fans to continue reading her magical novels. 4.5★
November 4, 2009
The only disappointing thing about this book was that I finished it, and have no new Kingsolver books to look forward to.
As always, her writing is exquisite. I found myself re-reading parts just to savor her use of language.
The Lacuna is a novel based on real events in history--the Mexican artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo and the period in the 1930's when Trotsky was exiled in Mexico. I learned a lot while enjoying a good story, not really sure where it was heading--but oh! does it come together in the end in a way that took my breath away.
As always, her writing is exquisite. I found myself re-reading parts just to savor her use of language.
The Lacuna is a novel based on real events in history--the Mexican artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo and the period in the 1930's when Trotsky was exiled in Mexico. I learned a lot while enjoying a good story, not really sure where it was heading--but oh! does it come together in the end in a way that took my breath away.
January 31, 2019
This is a book I read quite a while ago, I rated it a 4 1/2 because I didn't care for the ending.
This is the story of Harrison Shepherd, parents divorced when he was young, his mother took him to Mexico. First they lived on a beautiful hacienda by the ocean where the boy was lonesome until he discovered swimming and diving in the sea. He was much draw to the deep holes, "lacunas" in the ocean and often figured out when the sea was at the right level that he could swim through some of the lacunas and end up on the other side.
Just when he was feeling at home here, his mother took him to Mexico City. He starts to mix plaster for painters, in particular the famed muralist Diego Rivera He discovers a passion for Aztec history and meets the exotic, imperious artist Frida Kahlo, Diego's wife. He goes on to work as a cook/secretary for Lev Trotsy, an exiled political leader fighting for his life. He begins to get involved with the artists and the growing revolution with the risk of terrible violence.
Eventually he ends up in the US, north Carolina, where he becomes an acclaimed novelist. However during Hoover's incredible "cleaning out the country of communists" Harrison is found guilty of communicating with communists and has to flee the country. He eventually drowns at the young age of 34 in the Mexican sea.
The characters were fully described and by the end of the book I felt as though I knew Mr. Shepherd and felt sorry for his persecution. Descriptions of the ocean and surrounding foliage are awesome. The details of political unrest reveal a lot of history which I knew nothing about. As always Ms. Kingsolver injects politics into her books but this was quite an interesting and eye opening novel.
I recommend this book to lovers of Ms. Kingsolver's beautiful writing and historical fiction.
This is the story of Harrison Shepherd, parents divorced when he was young, his mother took him to Mexico. First they lived on a beautiful hacienda by the ocean where the boy was lonesome until he discovered swimming and diving in the sea. He was much draw to the deep holes, "lacunas" in the ocean and often figured out when the sea was at the right level that he could swim through some of the lacunas and end up on the other side.
Just when he was feeling at home here, his mother took him to Mexico City. He starts to mix plaster for painters, in particular the famed muralist Diego Rivera He discovers a passion for Aztec history and meets the exotic, imperious artist Frida Kahlo, Diego's wife. He goes on to work as a cook/secretary for Lev Trotsy, an exiled political leader fighting for his life. He begins to get involved with the artists and the growing revolution with the risk of terrible violence.
Eventually he ends up in the US, north Carolina, where he becomes an acclaimed novelist. However during Hoover's incredible "cleaning out the country of communists" Harrison is found guilty of communicating with communists and has to flee the country. He eventually drowns at the young age of 34 in the Mexican sea.
The characters were fully described and by the end of the book I felt as though I knew Mr. Shepherd and felt sorry for his persecution. Descriptions of the ocean and surrounding foliage are awesome. The details of political unrest reveal a lot of history which I knew nothing about. As always Ms. Kingsolver injects politics into her books but this was quite an interesting and eye opening novel.
I recommend this book to lovers of Ms. Kingsolver's beautiful writing and historical fiction.
December 12, 2009
3 1/2 stars
The two sections of this book are different enough that it could almost be reviewed as two separate books. They really are THAT different.
First 275 pages or so = 4 stars
Final 230 pages or so = 2 stars
Kingsolver is at the peak of her descriptive powers in the first part of the book. Her bright, lively detailing of Harrison's early life in Mexico compensates for the patchiness of the narration. Add to that the real characters of Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and Lev (Leon) Trotsky, and it makes for an intriguing story.
The second part is so drab by comparison that it's almost a chore to get through. The dullness is compounded by a lack of narrative flow. Try making a story from a collection of letters, news articles, and journal entries. Not too appealing.
I understand Kingsolver's agenda for the book. Nothing wrong with that. It's honorable to promote one's concerns and ideas through fiction. In the latter part of The Lacuna, however, I think her need to educate or make a statement competes too loudly with a story so richly begun.
I did like the way it ended. The Afterward section gave me chills and made me chuckle just a little. Hence, my waffly, weaselly overall rating of 3 1/2 stars.
The two sections of this book are different enough that it could almost be reviewed as two separate books. They really are THAT different.
First 275 pages or so = 4 stars
Final 230 pages or so = 2 stars
Kingsolver is at the peak of her descriptive powers in the first part of the book. Her bright, lively detailing of Harrison's early life in Mexico compensates for the patchiness of the narration. Add to that the real characters of Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and Lev (Leon) Trotsky, and it makes for an intriguing story.
The second part is so drab by comparison that it's almost a chore to get through. The dullness is compounded by a lack of narrative flow. Try making a story from a collection of letters, news articles, and journal entries. Not too appealing.
I understand Kingsolver's agenda for the book. Nothing wrong with that. It's honorable to promote one's concerns and ideas through fiction. In the latter part of The Lacuna, however, I think her need to educate or make a statement competes too loudly with a story so richly begun.
I did like the way it ended. The Afterward section gave me chills and made me chuckle just a little. Hence, my waffly, weaselly overall rating of 3 1/2 stars.
November 4, 2009
Is there anyone who writes with such beauty as Barbara Kingsolver? She has an ability to transform the reader from reading on a dreary porch to Isla Pixol, Mexico of the 1930s to Asheville, North Carolina of the 1940s. To transform someone from a beloved novelist to a scourge to be abhorred overnight. The Lacuna is about Harrison Shepherd, son of a Mexican woman and a US government official, who belonged to both countries, yet not to either of them. He wound up working for Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo as a young teen, who then introduced him to persons and ideologies who came back to haunt him as a young man - persecuted by the howlers. Loved it - loved it.
February 9, 2011
Kingsolver's best book since The Poisonwood Bible, The Lacuna is the story of a diffident, unassuming man who is thrust unwillingly onto the centre stage of history. Harrison Shepherd, is born in America but raised in Mexico by his half American, half Mexican mother, a woman who is temperamentally discontented with her position in society and is always seeking to improve it through a series of affairs with married men.
As a youth, Harrison becomes involved with the painters Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo and subsequently with their friend, Leon Trotsky, who is in hiding in Mexico from Stalin's execution squads. Harrison works for all three, graduating from cook to secretary, and finally being entrusted with the care of a shipment of Kahlo's paintings to the US. Impressed by the American lifestyle, he decides to stay and manages to create a new career for himself as an extremely successful novelist, only to be denounced as a Communist in the McCarthyite witch-hunts while at the height of his popularity.
It's a cleverly structured and beautifully crafted book with an emotionally satisfying ending that I did not see coming until the last few pages. I do have some reservations, however. Kingsolver's unabashed political stance can seem intrusive sometimes and I did find the almost saintly portrayal of Trotsky a bit unlikely. Nevertheless, the sheer scale and ambition of this work, the seamless integration of historical material, and the way that imagery and motif are sown into the narrative at every level make this a hugely impressive work.
As a youth, Harrison becomes involved with the painters Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo and subsequently with their friend, Leon Trotsky, who is in hiding in Mexico from Stalin's execution squads. Harrison works for all three, graduating from cook to secretary, and finally being entrusted with the care of a shipment of Kahlo's paintings to the US. Impressed by the American lifestyle, he decides to stay and manages to create a new career for himself as an extremely successful novelist, only to be denounced as a Communist in the McCarthyite witch-hunts while at the height of his popularity.
It's a cleverly structured and beautifully crafted book with an emotionally satisfying ending that I did not see coming until the last few pages. I do have some reservations, however. Kingsolver's unabashed political stance can seem intrusive sometimes and I did find the almost saintly portrayal of Trotsky a bit unlikely. Nevertheless, the sheer scale and ambition of this work, the seamless integration of historical material, and the way that imagery and motif are sown into the narrative at every level make this a hugely impressive work.
January 26, 2022
The Lacuna was a sweeping and epic work of literary fiction that spans from Mexico to Washington, D.C. to Asheville, North Carolina combining history and fiction and taking place from the 1930's to the 1950's. This is the intricate tale of fictional character Harrison William Shepherd with the background of people like Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, renowned Latin American artists, to Lev Trotsky and the rise of McCarthyism in the United States. There are beautiful literary and artistic references throughout and the lacuna is used metaphorically in this novel with great effect.
"No, lacuna. He said it means a different thing from lagoon. Not a cave exactly but an opening, like a mouth, that swallows things. He opened his mouth to show. It goes into the belly of the world. He says Isla Pixol is full of them. In ancient times God made the rocks melt and flow like water. It wasn't God, it was volcanoes."
November 21, 2020
I really liked the first part (roughly half) of this book about a boy (Harrison)who is being raised by a mother who eeks out an existence by sponging off the men she manages to ensnare. The setting is 1930's Mexico. Mexican artists Diego Rivera and his wife Frida Kahlo are an integral part of the story, as is Lev Trotsky (leader of the Bolshevik Revolution and Rivera's friend and houseguest).
The second half of the book completely switches gears. The setting is Asheville NC where Harrison is living the life of a semi-recluse and writing historical novels during the time of the Red Scare. The second half of the book was more of a lecture/essay in the thin guise of a novel. Lots of lecturing conversations and little if any subtlety. The brightest glimmer of light in the second half of the book was the no-nonsense, out- from- the- hollers Violet Brown, Harrison's secretary.
I'd give the first half of the book a 3.5 or 4 and the second half a 2 (loved Poisonwood Bible and Prodigal Summer so was disappointed).
The second half of the book completely switches gears. The setting is Asheville NC where Harrison is living the life of a semi-recluse and writing historical novels during the time of the Red Scare. The second half of the book was more of a lecture/essay in the thin guise of a novel. Lots of lecturing conversations and little if any subtlety. The brightest glimmer of light in the second half of the book was the no-nonsense, out- from- the- hollers Violet Brown, Harrison's secretary.
I'd give the first half of the book a 3.5 or 4 and the second half a 2 (loved Poisonwood Bible and Prodigal Summer so was disappointed).
November 4, 2009
This is quite the novel, as full and satisfying as anything I've read in some time. Its picture of Mexico in the 30's is spot on, and the characters of Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, and Lev Trotsky feel fresh and sharp.
The political correctness which bored me in Barbara Kingsolver's novels seem naive has developed--she's showing, not preaching. A wonderful read by an author who is at her best.
The political correctness which bored me in Barbara Kingsolver's novels seem naive has developed--she's showing, not preaching. A wonderful read by an author who is at her best.
December 23, 2016
This is my first and so far, only book by Barbara Kingsolver. She writes beautifully, and I loved this strange story of a fictional gay man caught up in the real life struggles of Frieda Kahlo, Diego Rivera and Leon Trotsky - also the scathing indictment of McCarthyism in the final part. The story feels strangely incomplete, yet the final, unexpected twist was exquisite.
I am determined to read more of this author's books.
I am determined to read more of this author's books.
January 8, 2014
For some or other reason, being a staunch admirer of Barbara Kingsolver's books, I just could not connect with this one anywhere. Do I blame the author? No. We, the book and I, just did not gel and that's it.
What I appreciated:
1) Historical background of Mexican history going back thousands of years, and American society between 1900 and more or less 1955: brilliant with enough detail to last a lifetime.
2) The characters: The protagonist as introduced by Violet Brown, his personal assistant and last friend. And of that I am not even sure. But, no, I think she was.
The main characters were real people. Fiction and fact got married in this book. Mexican artists Freda Kahlo and her husband Diego Riviera, as well as Leon Trotsky was internationally well-known figures. Several others in the book were real too. I've read a biography of Trotsky many years ago, so that part of the story did not tickle my fancy as much as it would have for someone who did not have the background on the Russian exile. Perhaps the historical facts sweetened-up by a long winding narrative in diary form, did not work well enough for me.
What I did not like:
The miles and miles and miles of words stringing the story together. There is an undertone of unrest, discontent, darkness, whatever you wish to call it in the book that worked like microscopic pebbles on blistered feet confined to heavy boots on a long walk home from the mountains. You cannot see them but you feel them and it's killing you!
P. 506. "Well, my stars, the thing was like the Bible-look hard enough in its pages, and you'll find what you seek. Love they neighbor, or slay him with the jawbone of an ass."
As a possible true story, because it could have happened to anyone to be falsely accused and found guilty of something you did not commit, this tale should be told. It doesn't matter what we believe in, we lose everything when we maintain that believe with lies and deliberate misconceptions. And yes, Harrison Shepherd, the protagonist, left more than a story behind. He left a house with a mirror. One he used. One that Violet had to confront each day. In the end it is a mirror that is waiting for all of us. Will we like what we see? After this book, I am not so sure.
The cover blurb summarizes the story perfectly. I am not going to try to improve on it. However, I am of the opinion that this book could have been three hundred pages shorter and would have had a much more powerful story to tell. The middle part of the book, which I skipped from page 188, by reading mostly one sentence per paragraph, tiptoeing through 203 pages, yes, just finally convinced me to take off the damn boots and leave the pain behind. So I continued reading in detail again on page 391 till the end(page 507). I just wanted to get it over with and get closure!
I still think it is a tale to be told since it provides a platform to confront political horrors of the world. A chance to expose those skeletons in the closets of those heroes on the pedestals. What are excellent historical fiction other than that, right? It's never wrong to flip a pancake over. It is the kind of book I revel in yes. Admittedly.
And the author did leave the message in the end to take out of the book what we need. She also warned on two occasions not to continue reading....with good reason. Very clever, indeed!
This was my fourth try with this book and this time I gave it two days with many hours of reading. Maybe a fifth is waiting in the future. Perhaps this was still not the right moment to grasp every word and cover myself completely with the magic. The pebbles in my boots are painfully preventing me to do just that. For now at least!
But let's see what happens. It wasn't my Barbara Kingsolver moment this time around.
What I appreciated:
1) Historical background of Mexican history going back thousands of years, and American society between 1900 and more or less 1955: brilliant with enough detail to last a lifetime.
2) The characters: The protagonist as introduced by Violet Brown, his personal assistant and last friend. And of that I am not even sure. But, no, I think she was.
The main characters were real people. Fiction and fact got married in this book. Mexican artists Freda Kahlo and her husband Diego Riviera, as well as Leon Trotsky was internationally well-known figures. Several others in the book were real too. I've read a biography of Trotsky many years ago, so that part of the story did not tickle my fancy as much as it would have for someone who did not have the background on the Russian exile. Perhaps the historical facts sweetened-up by a long winding narrative in diary form, did not work well enough for me.
What I did not like:
The miles and miles and miles of words stringing the story together. There is an undertone of unrest, discontent, darkness, whatever you wish to call it in the book that worked like microscopic pebbles on blistered feet confined to heavy boots on a long walk home from the mountains. You cannot see them but you feel them and it's killing you!
P. 506. "Well, my stars, the thing was like the Bible-look hard enough in its pages, and you'll find what you seek. Love they neighbor, or slay him with the jawbone of an ass."
As a possible true story, because it could have happened to anyone to be falsely accused and found guilty of something you did not commit, this tale should be told. It doesn't matter what we believe in, we lose everything when we maintain that believe with lies and deliberate misconceptions. And yes, Harrison Shepherd, the protagonist, left more than a story behind. He left a house with a mirror. One he used. One that Violet had to confront each day. In the end it is a mirror that is waiting for all of us. Will we like what we see? After this book, I am not so sure.
The cover blurb summarizes the story perfectly. I am not going to try to improve on it. However, I am of the opinion that this book could have been three hundred pages shorter and would have had a much more powerful story to tell. The middle part of the book, which I skipped from page 188, by reading mostly one sentence per paragraph, tiptoeing through 203 pages, yes, just finally convinced me to take off the damn boots and leave the pain behind. So I continued reading in detail again on page 391 till the end(page 507). I just wanted to get it over with and get closure!
I still think it is a tale to be told since it provides a platform to confront political horrors of the world. A chance to expose those skeletons in the closets of those heroes on the pedestals. What are excellent historical fiction other than that, right? It's never wrong to flip a pancake over. It is the kind of book I revel in yes. Admittedly.
And the author did leave the message in the end to take out of the book what we need. She also warned on two occasions not to continue reading....with good reason. Very clever, indeed!
This was my fourth try with this book and this time I gave it two days with many hours of reading. Maybe a fifth is waiting in the future. Perhaps this was still not the right moment to grasp every word and cover myself completely with the magic. The pebbles in my boots are painfully preventing me to do just that. For now at least!
But let's see what happens. It wasn't my Barbara Kingsolver moment this time around.
April 20, 2019
Really good story. Lots of history.
August 9, 2017
This one is so close to being 5 stars. It's got the scope and ambition of The Poisonwood Bible, but with the butterfly touch of her breezier novels. Ranging from the 1930s Mexico of Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, and (exiled) Lev Trotsky to the 1950s America of J. Edgar Hoover, this book uses an epic backdrop to tell the story of one solitary, forgotten man. The dozen or so different formats (including journals, book reviews, letters, newspaper articles, and transcripts) are deftly handled and perfectly paced. And maybe best of all is Kingsolver's sensational portrait of Frida Kahlo. I'd recommend this one to pretty much anybody, whatever your usual tastes - it's just a damn good story.
September 3, 2016
This is a great read that satisfies on several levels. A key pleasure is Kingsolver's prose, which shines as we would expect from her track record of essays and novels about rural folks in Appalachia and the Southwest. It also satisfies as a coming of age tale of a half-Mexican, half-American boy, Harrison Shepherd, raised by his mother on an island near Vera Cruz and later transferred to the care of his father, who dumps him in a boarding school in Washington, DC.
Shepherd seeks solace from his emotional isolation through books, exploring nature, and a special friendship with the surrealist artist, Frida Kohl. While residing in Ashville, North Carolina, he achieves success as a writer of novels about Aztecs and Mayans, all the while hiding his homosexuality. Eventually he assumes the role as a cook and secretary in Kohl's household in Mexico with her husband and fellow artist Diego Rivera. This gives him an inside vision on their tumultuous relationship and struggles with their work and politics. The Bolshevik and Communist Party leader Leon Trotsky turns up as a character when Rivera hosts his stay in Mexico during his exile in the 1930's. History buffs will recall that Stalin's GRU agents assassinated him there in 1940 in retaliation for public criticism of the Soviet non-aggression pact with the Nazis.
The novel highlights Mexico's affinity with socialism and the growth in pride for its own artist heroes in this period. The role of art as personal versus political expression gets explored through the plot. The focus of the tale on Shepherd's life gets a bit diluted for awhile with the major historical figures on the stage. But eventually we move comfortably along the life of the lead character back in America. During the McCarthy era, Shepherd's past connections with communists undermine his writing career and his guarded private life. The latter is blessed by a deep friendship with an older woman who becomes his secretary and protector.
As you might guess from these disparate plot elements, the novel is overambitious. Still, I was pleased with the portrayal of the personal life of a charming character with integrity and emotional zest against the backdrop of historical progressions in art and politics. The "lacuna" of the title, meaning "missing piece", is an overriding metaphor, often raised in the narrative to signify how the the key to a person is the part one doesn't know.
Shepherd seeks solace from his emotional isolation through books, exploring nature, and a special friendship with the surrealist artist, Frida Kohl. While residing in Ashville, North Carolina, he achieves success as a writer of novels about Aztecs and Mayans, all the while hiding his homosexuality. Eventually he assumes the role as a cook and secretary in Kohl's household in Mexico with her husband and fellow artist Diego Rivera. This gives him an inside vision on their tumultuous relationship and struggles with their work and politics. The Bolshevik and Communist Party leader Leon Trotsky turns up as a character when Rivera hosts his stay in Mexico during his exile in the 1930's. History buffs will recall that Stalin's GRU agents assassinated him there in 1940 in retaliation for public criticism of the Soviet non-aggression pact with the Nazis.
The novel highlights Mexico's affinity with socialism and the growth in pride for its own artist heroes in this period. The role of art as personal versus political expression gets explored through the plot. The focus of the tale on Shepherd's life gets a bit diluted for awhile with the major historical figures on the stage. But eventually we move comfortably along the life of the lead character back in America. During the McCarthy era, Shepherd's past connections with communists undermine his writing career and his guarded private life. The latter is blessed by a deep friendship with an older woman who becomes his secretary and protector.
As you might guess from these disparate plot elements, the novel is overambitious. Still, I was pleased with the portrayal of the personal life of a charming character with integrity and emotional zest against the backdrop of historical progressions in art and politics. The "lacuna" of the title, meaning "missing piece", is an overriding metaphor, often raised in the narrative to signify how the the key to a person is the part one doesn't know.
July 13, 2012
I tried & tried & tried to like this book...I am a huge Kingsolver fan so I expected it would grow into something wonderful. I liked the beginning, but once the main character was shipped off to the US, I lost total interest. I was already a little irritated by the disjointed, journal style but was enjoying the character's adventures in Mexico. But when he ended up in the US with his weird father & unpleasant characters, I forced myself to finish the first 100 pages & then stopped...it took me 3 struggling weeks to get to that point, I feel like I gave it a fair shake. It wasn't the usual Kingsolver book, full of natural wonders but rather a more human/society tale. I think she just hopped off her normal track for this book, it might be great for another reader but the themes didn't work for me.
I gave it 2 stars because it might have turned to something...but I couldn't hold out to finish it, too much time wasted already! It is only one of two books that I have stopped before finishing in my entire life, it just wasn't working for me!
I gave it 2 stars because it might have turned to something...but I couldn't hold out to finish it, too much time wasted already! It is only one of two books that I have stopped before finishing in my entire life, it just wasn't working for me!
January 28, 2022
Ambitious historical fiction that begins on an island off the coast of Mexico in 1929. Protagonist Harrison Shepherd is thirteen years old lives with his Mexican mother, Salome, and her paramour, Enrique. Salome left Harrison’s American father in Virginia and traveled to Mexico to live a lavish lifestyle with Enrique. Left mostly to himself, Harrison learns to cook and helps in the kitchen. When the romance grows stale, Salome takes Harrison to Mexico City to live with another of her lovers.
The novel is complex in its narrative structure. The early chapters are told in third person by an omniscient narrator, but the reader learns, via an archivist’s entry, that these chapters were written by Harrison Shepherd years later, after he had become a notable author. At that point, the structure shifts to a series of diary entries, written by Harrison. The archivist gradually reveals herself, and we learn her relationship to Harrison Shepherd and what happened to him.
These two narrators, the protagonist and archivist, become witnesses to a thirty-year span of US and Mexican history. The storyline covers the Great Depression, the lives of Mexican artists Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, exiled Marxist Leon Trotsky, election of Harry Truman, the House Un-American Activities Committee, and Senator Joseph McCarthy’s campaign against alleged Communists. Harrison Shepherd is one of the alleged Communists due to his former employment with Kahlo, Rivera, and Trotsky.
This book helps the reader understand the impact of historical events on people of the time. The downside to this telling is that it is a bit fragmented, consisting of letters, an archivist’s notes, news articles, and court transcripts. Even though this approach is intentional and fits with the title, the reader may occasionally feel like too much is left in the gap between what is known and unknown. These gaps (lacunae) are places in which Harrison experiences a crisis, either in identity or a disruptive occurrence.
Harrison foreshadows the difficulties he will face while exploring underwater caves in his youth: “Today the lacuna appeared, a little below the surface. It’s near the center of the cliff below a knob where a hummock of grass grows out. It should be easy to find again but best to look early, with sun just up and the tide low. Inside the tunnel it was very cold and dark again. But a blue light showed up faintly like a fogged window, farther back. It must be the other end, no devil back there but a place to come up on the other side, a passage. But too far to swim, and too frightening.”
It is a sweeping epic replete with social commentary and historic relevance. I loved the parts set in Mexico. There is a bit of a lull in the middle before ramping up to the protagonist facing questionable accusations. I think it is quite an accomplished novel and the ending is particularly well-done.
4.5
The novel is complex in its narrative structure. The early chapters are told in third person by an omniscient narrator, but the reader learns, via an archivist’s entry, that these chapters were written by Harrison Shepherd years later, after he had become a notable author. At that point, the structure shifts to a series of diary entries, written by Harrison. The archivist gradually reveals herself, and we learn her relationship to Harrison Shepherd and what happened to him.
These two narrators, the protagonist and archivist, become witnesses to a thirty-year span of US and Mexican history. The storyline covers the Great Depression, the lives of Mexican artists Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, exiled Marxist Leon Trotsky, election of Harry Truman, the House Un-American Activities Committee, and Senator Joseph McCarthy’s campaign against alleged Communists. Harrison Shepherd is one of the alleged Communists due to his former employment with Kahlo, Rivera, and Trotsky.
This book helps the reader understand the impact of historical events on people of the time. The downside to this telling is that it is a bit fragmented, consisting of letters, an archivist’s notes, news articles, and court transcripts. Even though this approach is intentional and fits with the title, the reader may occasionally feel like too much is left in the gap between what is known and unknown. These gaps (lacunae) are places in which Harrison experiences a crisis, either in identity or a disruptive occurrence.
Harrison foreshadows the difficulties he will face while exploring underwater caves in his youth: “Today the lacuna appeared, a little below the surface. It’s near the center of the cliff below a knob where a hummock of grass grows out. It should be easy to find again but best to look early, with sun just up and the tide low. Inside the tunnel it was very cold and dark again. But a blue light showed up faintly like a fogged window, farther back. It must be the other end, no devil back there but a place to come up on the other side, a passage. But too far to swim, and too frightening.”
It is a sweeping epic replete with social commentary and historic relevance. I loved the parts set in Mexico. There is a bit of a lull in the middle before ramping up to the protagonist facing questionable accusations. I think it is quite an accomplished novel and the ending is particularly well-done.
4.5
July 10, 2012
This book is a powerful exposé of our country’s experiences and eventual recovery from the time of the depression until after World War II, up to and including the McCarthy era. The reminder of the world’s decay and the violent politics of that time made me shudder as I read it.
The book traces the life of a fictitious person, Harrison Shepherd, a rather lost soul, born in the United States of an American father, a government worker, and a Mexican mother of rather loose morals. He is shuttled from one country to the other, without clearly identifying with either one, Mexico or the United States. He has no anchor to either place. His anchor is to the lacuna*** he discovers as a boy, when his loneliness leads him to become a swimmer and to explore the ocean’s floor. As the story begins, so it ends.
While Harrison Shepherd’s character is made up out of whole cloth, the reader will recognize many of the other characters in the book that lived at that time: Hoover, Churchill, Trotsky, Lenin, Stalin, Kahlo, Rivera, Truman, Nixon, McCarthy and so on. The events in the countries discussed, actually took place.
Illuminated for us by Violet Brown, his stenographer, we learn about the politics of Shepherd’s employers and of the countries they represent. She opens a window into his private life, his sexuality and his thoughts. She leads us on his journey as he tries to survive his haphazard existence, as a young man, in a troubled world. He is largely innocent, naive and unaware of the dangers awaiting him in the outside world.
Alternately during his life he is a plaster mixer for Diego Rivera, a confidante to his artist wife, Frida Kahlo, a secretary to Leon Trotsky, a cook and later on an accomplished novelist in the United States. Shepherd’s journals, diaries, and fictitious correspondence, primarily with Frida Kahlo, lead us on a journey through the period of his life in Mexico, when he lived with his mother and worked for the Riveras, until he was returned to his father in the United States and attended a military school. After that brief sojourn, he returns to Mexico to work again for the Riveras, proceeding from there to work as secretary and cook to Trotsky, the exiled Russian. Later when he again returns to the United States, he becomes an author of some renown, attracting the attention of the Un-American Activities Committee, and finally returns again to Mexico, going back to his lacuna after being disgraced by false innuendo and false accusations.
Kingsolver has done a monumental job of describing the events and atmosphere of those times. All of the heroes and villains of the day are drawn clearly and their emotions and fears are captured perfectly. How difficult it must have been for her, as a writer, to write a story about a writer, and to make that writer have a style of his own, apart from hers, and yet, she did it magnificently.
The first part of the book was the weakest one for me. It was a bit tedious, but after that, the pace picked up and the book branched out connecting fact to fiction and held my interest. Kingsolver has shown how, on several occasions, a few power hungry men, politicians of all stripes, radicals and extremists, came together to alter the course of history. Their extreme views caused panic, fear and ultimately, obedience. The media fanned the flames by printing information regardless of its veracity, because they were not so much concerned with the truth but rather with the size of their audience.
The most frightening message for me, gleaned from this book, was that we are today in the midst of a similar atmosphere in which the politics of division are being ramped up and paraded across front pages of newspapers and a media still intent on readers rather than facts is shaping our history and our world.
Once again we have a political situation in which a leader is allowing the country to be corrupted by false statements, soundbites, inference and fear which tend to incite the country to move in a particular direction and turn against a particular segment of the population. The enemy has changed but the false accusations are the same and the results can be catastrophic. Are we headed down the same shameful road to ignominy that we traveled with McCarthy? As the media and politicians once fanned the flames of hate and fear and closed the minds and mouths of those that disagreed, silencing all opposition, are we not now, with our political correctness echoing those times? In the time of the novel, communism was the ugly enemy, in today’s time, success appears to be the enemy, as class warfare is encouraged and waged against innocent, successful people, a situation promoted and worsened by the media and politicians of all stripes. Is truth stranger than fiction or is art imitating life? Once, speaking out against government policies was likely to falsely brand you as a communist, today, doing the same, will likely falsely brand you as a racist. I don’t think either policy is worthy of this country! This book was published in 2009. Perhaps it needs to be reissued again.
***For purposes of this book, the lacuna, which refers to something secret, has many meanings.
The book traces the life of a fictitious person, Harrison Shepherd, a rather lost soul, born in the United States of an American father, a government worker, and a Mexican mother of rather loose morals. He is shuttled from one country to the other, without clearly identifying with either one, Mexico or the United States. He has no anchor to either place. His anchor is to the lacuna*** he discovers as a boy, when his loneliness leads him to become a swimmer and to explore the ocean’s floor. As the story begins, so it ends.
While Harrison Shepherd’s character is made up out of whole cloth, the reader will recognize many of the other characters in the book that lived at that time: Hoover, Churchill, Trotsky, Lenin, Stalin, Kahlo, Rivera, Truman, Nixon, McCarthy and so on. The events in the countries discussed, actually took place.
Illuminated for us by Violet Brown, his stenographer, we learn about the politics of Shepherd’s employers and of the countries they represent. She opens a window into his private life, his sexuality and his thoughts. She leads us on his journey as he tries to survive his haphazard existence, as a young man, in a troubled world. He is largely innocent, naive and unaware of the dangers awaiting him in the outside world.
Alternately during his life he is a plaster mixer for Diego Rivera, a confidante to his artist wife, Frida Kahlo, a secretary to Leon Trotsky, a cook and later on an accomplished novelist in the United States. Shepherd’s journals, diaries, and fictitious correspondence, primarily with Frida Kahlo, lead us on a journey through the period of his life in Mexico, when he lived with his mother and worked for the Riveras, until he was returned to his father in the United States and attended a military school. After that brief sojourn, he returns to Mexico to work again for the Riveras, proceeding from there to work as secretary and cook to Trotsky, the exiled Russian. Later when he again returns to the United States, he becomes an author of some renown, attracting the attention of the Un-American Activities Committee, and finally returns again to Mexico, going back to his lacuna after being disgraced by false innuendo and false accusations.
Kingsolver has done a monumental job of describing the events and atmosphere of those times. All of the heroes and villains of the day are drawn clearly and their emotions and fears are captured perfectly. How difficult it must have been for her, as a writer, to write a story about a writer, and to make that writer have a style of his own, apart from hers, and yet, she did it magnificently.
The first part of the book was the weakest one for me. It was a bit tedious, but after that, the pace picked up and the book branched out connecting fact to fiction and held my interest. Kingsolver has shown how, on several occasions, a few power hungry men, politicians of all stripes, radicals and extremists, came together to alter the course of history. Their extreme views caused panic, fear and ultimately, obedience. The media fanned the flames by printing information regardless of its veracity, because they were not so much concerned with the truth but rather with the size of their audience.
The most frightening message for me, gleaned from this book, was that we are today in the midst of a similar atmosphere in which the politics of division are being ramped up and paraded across front pages of newspapers and a media still intent on readers rather than facts is shaping our history and our world.
Once again we have a political situation in which a leader is allowing the country to be corrupted by false statements, soundbites, inference and fear which tend to incite the country to move in a particular direction and turn against a particular segment of the population. The enemy has changed but the false accusations are the same and the results can be catastrophic. Are we headed down the same shameful road to ignominy that we traveled with McCarthy? As the media and politicians once fanned the flames of hate and fear and closed the minds and mouths of those that disagreed, silencing all opposition, are we not now, with our political correctness echoing those times? In the time of the novel, communism was the ugly enemy, in today’s time, success appears to be the enemy, as class warfare is encouraged and waged against innocent, successful people, a situation promoted and worsened by the media and politicians of all stripes. Is truth stranger than fiction or is art imitating life? Once, speaking out against government policies was likely to falsely brand you as a communist, today, doing the same, will likely falsely brand you as a racist. I don’t think either policy is worthy of this country! This book was published in 2009. Perhaps it needs to be reissued again.
***For purposes of this book, the lacuna, which refers to something secret, has many meanings.
May 11, 2019
The Lacuna begins in the dark days of revolutionary Russia and ends up in the McCarthy witch hunts of the early fifties. Post war America was not a nice place to live. The paranoia about Communism that engulfed the country and lead to miserable lives for lots of ordinary people accused either of being a Communist or guilty of unAmerican activities. Either way you couldn’t win . The main character Harrison Shepherd worked as a cook and typist for Trotsky while living in exile in Mexico. When he moves to America a few years later he becomes a successful writer. Then his troubles start
December 15, 2009
Amazing book. This blew me away, both as a reader and as a writer. There were a few moments that especially moved me. In particular, I'm thinking of a love letter that gets waylaid, and another sort of love letter that finally is opened and understood. The latter made me put the book down and cry. I couldn't open it again for the rest of the day--couldn't even look at the cover--even though it was at a critical part and I was dying to know what would happen, I couldn't face what the character's life was telling me about my own. But I did go back, of course, and the remainder of the book healed the lacuna that it had created in this reader's heart.
The Lacuna is not only a wrenching story, beautifully told, but also a fabulous, sweeping epic of a story that incorporates figures from history and gives us a glimpse into a shameful period in the American past that could all too easily be repeated if we, as a populace, are not careful. But it never devolves into preaching. The Lacuna is a delightfully readable novel that seamlessly incorporates a true, colorful--and cautionary--tale from the past. What could be better?
The Lacuna is not only a wrenching story, beautifully told, but also a fabulous, sweeping epic of a story that incorporates figures from history and gives us a glimpse into a shameful period in the American past that could all too easily be repeated if we, as a populace, are not careful. But it never devolves into preaching. The Lacuna is a delightfully readable novel that seamlessly incorporates a true, colorful--and cautionary--tale from the past. What could be better?
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January 8, 2010Every night while I was reading this book, I dreamt of its characters. I enjoyed the leisurely first part, but when Kingsolver plunged into the Diego Rivera/Frida Kahlo/Lev Trotsky section, I plunged deeper with her. And by the time the protagonist is writing books, receiving adulation and criticism in his homeland, I was reading the book on at least three levels: 1) paying attention to the protagonist's actions and reactions, 2)reviewing what I know of American history and culture from 1930-1951 through a different lens, and 3) listening to the protagonist's perspective on what it is to be a writer.
Other reviewers have pointed out that Harrison Shepherd is a passive observer rather than active participant in his own life. With all the other strong characters, each with decided opinions on most subjects, Harrison plays a counterpoint: listener, observer, the one who takes everything in and gives it back in what he writes in journals and novels. When Harrison asks his secretary to burn a childhood journal, he muses ( to himself): "An invisible boy made manifest, seen for once by another's eyes, if only for a short while. A city of memories has gone up in fire and gas, and there can be no remorse." I think Shepherd knows himself best through his own words put on the page.
Violet Brown is my favorite character in this book. She is so true to herself, so stalwart, and knows how to ask penetrating questions. Everyone needs a Violet Brown to hold up the self-disclosing mirror, one who loves unconditionally and pulls no punches.
Other reviewers have pointed out that Harrison Shepherd is a passive observer rather than active participant in his own life. With all the other strong characters, each with decided opinions on most subjects, Harrison plays a counterpoint: listener, observer, the one who takes everything in and gives it back in what he writes in journals and novels. When Harrison asks his secretary to burn a childhood journal, he muses ( to himself): "An invisible boy made manifest, seen for once by another's eyes, if only for a short while. A city of memories has gone up in fire and gas, and there can be no remorse." I think Shepherd knows himself best through his own words put on the page.
Violet Brown is my favorite character in this book. She is so true to herself, so stalwart, and knows how to ask penetrating questions. Everyone needs a Violet Brown to hold up the self-disclosing mirror, one who loves unconditionally and pulls no punches.
August 29, 2018
I think this is probably the best book I have read this year so far.
I liked almost everything about it: the structure of the book, which is a mixture of journals of the main character, William Shepherd, since he was a boy until he becomes an adult, pieces written by the main narrator, Violet Brown (the supposed compiler of the book), and several newspaper clips. The writing of adult Shepherd/Kingsolver is beautiful, the story is truly epic, covering important moments of Mexican and USA history, and Kingsolver does a very good job mixing fictional and historical characters in a very credible way. As Violet Brown would say, my stars, what a great novel!
I liked almost everything about it: the structure of the book, which is a mixture of journals of the main character, William Shepherd, since he was a boy until he becomes an adult, pieces written by the main narrator, Violet Brown (the supposed compiler of the book), and several newspaper clips. The writing of adult Shepherd/Kingsolver is beautiful, the story is truly epic, covering important moments of Mexican and USA history, and Kingsolver does a very good job mixing fictional and historical characters in a very credible way. As Violet Brown would say, my stars, what a great novel!
Read
October 16, 2011While I thoroughly enjoyed The Poisonwood Bible I have huge problems with this book. Even though the book is fiction there are historical facts that have been included and it is indeed terrible when she makes so many mistakes. On page 56, she talks about the one fifth booty part that Cortes was to send to the Extremely Catholic Majesty the Queen. When this Queen, Isabel La Catolica, died in 1504, Cortes did not arrive in Mexico before 1519 and he wrote to and shared the booty with Carlos V The Emperor.
Napoleon did not invade Mexico he was having too many problems with the English it was Napoleon III a distant relation of Napoleon.
Her words in Spanish are not spelled correctly, as far as I can see the word Lacuna does not exist in Spanish or not in the sense she uses it. Where he and his mother lived in Mexico City was not at all a part of Mexico City, since the city was very small at the time and they lived in villages or town adjacent to the City.
I might finish the book but at the moment I have stopped because I think she should have done her editing more carefully. Even if the book takes place in Mexico, which most Americans tend to ignore she could have been more accurate.
Napoleon did not invade Mexico he was having too many problems with the English it was Napoleon III a distant relation of Napoleon.
Her words in Spanish are not spelled correctly, as far as I can see the word Lacuna does not exist in Spanish or not in the sense she uses it. Where he and his mother lived in Mexico City was not at all a part of Mexico City, since the city was very small at the time and they lived in villages or town adjacent to the City.
I might finish the book but at the moment I have stopped because I think she should have done her editing more carefully. Even if the book takes place in Mexico, which most Americans tend to ignore she could have been more accurate.
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