The Lacuna: A Novel - Couverture rigide

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.

“Rich...impassioned...engrossing...Politics and art dominate the novel, and their overt, unapologetic connection is refreshing.” (Chicago Tribune)

“Masterful...a reader receives the great gift of entering not one but several worlds...The final pages haunt me still.” (San Francisco Chronicle Book Review)

“Compelling...Kingsolver’s descriptions of life in Mexico City burst with sensory detail—thick sweet breads, vividly painted walls, the lovely white feet of an unattainable love.” (The New Yorker)

“A work that is often close to magic.... Much research underlies this complex weaving...but the work is lofted by lyric prose.” (Denver Post)

“Shepherd’s story in Kingsolver’s accomplished literary hands is so seductive, the prose so elegant, the architecture of the novel so imaginative, it becomes hard to peel away from the book” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

“[Kingsolver’s] playful pastiche brings to vivid life the culture wars of an earlier era...” (Vogue)

“...True and riveting...Barbara Kingsolver has invented a wondrous filling here, sweeter and thicker than pan dulce, spicy as the hottest Mexican chiles, paranoid as the American government hunting Communists ” (Philadelphia Inquirer)

“A sweeping mural of sensory delights and stimulating ideas about art, government, identity and history...Readers will feel the sting of connection between then and now.” (Seattle Times)

“A sweeping narrative of utopian dreams and political reality...A stirring novel...intimate and pitch-perfect.” (San Diego Union-Tribune)

“Kingsolver deftly combines real history and the life of the fictional protagonist...A sweeping tale.” (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)