Archive for January, 2010

Historians use the word “lacuna” to indicate a crucial missing piece in a manuscript. Kingsolver expertly weaves many threads of story to reveal the lacuna in Harrison Shepherd’s life. Taken to Mexico as a boy by his Mexican mother fleeing an American father, he is befriended by the cook in the hacienda and learns much about Mexico and its Aztec history. Eventually he ends up working for the famous artistic couple: Diego Rivera and Frieda Kahlo. In their household he observes revolutionary ideals and becomes acquainted with Leon Trotsky, on the run from a murderous Stalin. Shepherd eventually flees Mexico and settles in Asheville, North Carolina and becomes a popular novelist of ancient Mexico. Again, he is on the periphery of WWII and events of the Fifties. This powerful story shows how a person’s life can be caught up in political events without an active participation in their ideologies. Frieda Kahlo’s character says that to be a good artist you have to know something that is true; that knowledge about life has to go into art. Kingsolver knows many true things and has written a gem of a book. ~Gretchen Echols