'You had better write all this in your notebook, she said, the story of what happened to us in Mexico. So when nothing is left of us but bones, someone will know where we went.' Bo rn in the US, reared in a series of provisional households in Mexico, Harrison Shepherd is mostly a liability to his social-climbing mother, Salome. From a coastal island jungle to the unpaved neighbourhoods of 1930s Mexico City, his fortunes never steady as Salome finds her rich men-friends always on the losing side of the Mexican Revolution. He ...
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'You had better write all this in your notebook, she said, the story of what happened to us in Mexico. So when nothing is left of us but bones, someone will know where we went.' Bo rn in the US, reared in a series of provisional households in Mexico, Harrison Shepherd is mostly a liability to his social-climbing mother, Salome. From a coastal island jungle to the unpaved neighbourhoods of 1930s Mexico City, his fortunes never steady as Salome finds her rich men-friends always on the losing side of the Mexican Revolution. He aims for invisibility, observing his world and recording everything with a peculiar selfless irony in his notebooks. Life is whatever he learns from servants putting 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. Making himself useful in the household of the muralist, his wife Frida Kahlo, and exiled Bolshevik leader Lev Trotsky, young Shepherd inadvertently casts his lot in with art and revolution. A violent upheaval sends him north to a nation newly caught up in the internationalist goodwill of World War II. In Carolina, he remakes himself in America's hopeful image. Under the watch of his peerless stenographer, Violet Brown, he finds an extraordinary use for his talents of observation. But political winds continue to push him between north and south, in a plot that turns many times on the unspeakable breach - the lacuna - between truth and public presumption. The Lacuna is a gripping story of identity, connection with our past, and the power of words to create or devastate. Crossing two decades, from the vibrant revolutionary murals of Mexico City to the halls of a Congress bent on eradicating the colour red, The Lacuna is as deep and rich as the New World itself.
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Add this copy of The Lacuna to cart. $4.99, new condition, Sold by The BOOKATERIA rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Pittsburgh, PA, UNITED STATES, published 2009 by Faber & Faber.
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this is the second purchase from Oxfam Ireland and again it was faultless.
windsweptranch
Dec 9, 2010
I ordered this book entirely because of the author, I love her stuff, and was completely thrilled and pleased with the book.
jreader
Dec 5, 2010
Don't Bother
I agree with Marybee. I loved most of Kingsolver's novels, so was certain this one would be good. Yes, I learned some art and political history, but at the expense of being really bored. Sorry, Barbara, but this was not your best work. It's not even good.
Pamela B
Aug 14, 2010
One of Kingsolver's best books
This book is interesting and informative about a little know time in our history. At times a bit confusing, overall a great read.
emiliana
Jun 21, 2010
Excellent read
This is an excellent, thought- provoking book told from the vantage point of a young man, for the most part. It brings out much history of which I was not aware and which I would like to find the time to research further. I am amazed at Kingsolver's imagination and wording to create such a novel as this.
