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The Lacuna

By: Barbara Kingsolver
Narrated by: Barbara Kingsolver
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Editorial reviews

Barbara Kingsolver's new novel of Mexico and the Cold War is centered on “accidents of history”: how things turn out, and how easily they could have turned out otherwise. Both Kingsolver and her narrator Harrison Shepherd, who is a writer himself, are interested in history not for the marquee names but for the ordinary people swept up in the momentum of events. The Lacuna is made up of Harrison's notes and correspondence, beginning with his arrival at age 12 to the hacienda of a Mexican oil magnate and continuing through a youth spent as a cook in the employ of a radical painter couple in Mexico City. It's the 1930s, and the couple is, of course, Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, soon to be joined in their contentious household by Trotsky and his retinue.

Harrison watches these luminaries from the safety of the kitchen while they work, fight, and try to keep the most famous political exile in the world safe from Stalinist assassins. Kingsolver is an excellent narrator of her own story, differentiating the voices with artful touches that never seem cartoonish. Harrison is quiet and sharp, with a retiring diction nearly drowned out by strident Frida. Lev Trotsky is serious but avuncular, taking the time, despite his heavy intellectual labors, to encourage the literary aspirations of the young cook.

But this tense little world-in-exile can't last. As Frida tells Harrison again and again, the most important thing about a person is the thing you don't know. The Cold War is starting. Spies do a lot of damage, and fear of spies does more. By the time Harrison returns to the United States, an agoraphobic bundle of nerves, McCarthy is rising. No former cook for a Communist can escape the notice of Hoover's FBI. The Lacuna is an examination of history, both what of happened and of how we reconstruct it. Too often, Harrison muses, we take the scraps that come down to us for the whole, “like looking at a skeleton and saying 'how quiet this man was, and how thin.'” Harrison Shepherd, as a writer and obsessive keeper of diaries, does his best to keep flesh on the bones of the past. Kingsolver shows how impossible this undertaking is, and how important it is to try. Rosalie Knecht

Publisher's summary

From the Mexico City of Frida Kahlo to the America of J. Edgar Hoover, The Lacuna tells the poignant story of a man pulled between two nations.

Born in the United States, but reared in Mexico, Harrison Shepherd finds precarious shelter but no sense of home on his thrilling odyssey. Life is whatever he learns from housekeepers and, one fateful day, by mixing plaster for famed muralist Diego Rivera. When he goes to work for Rivera, his wife, exotic artist Kahlo, and exiled leader Lev Trotsky, Shepherd inadvertently casts his lot with art and revolution.

Meanwhile, the United States has embraced the internationalist goodwill of World War II. Back in the land of his birth, Shepherd seeks to remake himself in America's hopeful image and claim a voice of his own. But 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.

©2009 Barbara Kingsolver (P)2009 HarperCollins Publishers

What listeners say about The Lacuna

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Great characters and humor

Barbara Kingsolver has the ability to create memorable characters. They come to life on the page. She also is able to write very humerous scenes. This is the first of her books I have read. I enjoyed it so much I am now reading The Poisonwood Bible.

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    5 out of 5 stars

perfect narration

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

This is one of the best books that I have read and the narration was fantastic. I didn't realize until the end that it was read by Kingsolver herself. Her ability to switch settings from Mexico to NC mountains is amazing. And I learned a lot of history.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

A different kind of Kingsolver

Where does The Lacuna rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

It is definitely among the best audiobooks I've listened to. Barbara Kingsolver did a great job. I enjoyed listening to the author read it, because she gave it the inflections she meant for it to have.
The story is not one of my favorites by Kingsolver, but her prose is phenomenal, and I wanted to keep listening to see where it was all going.

What does Barbara Kingsolver bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Barbara Kingsolver brought the accents, and the correct pronunciations of the Spanish words I don't know, plus she brought the inflection of the words that I may have missed.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

starts slow, travels wonderfully....

The book began annoying slow (so I thought), but once the story began to unfold, I was thoroughly on for the ride. What a character Kingsolver paints of the young protagonist, Harrison Shepard. So sad the book ended. Having read other books about Frida and Trostky's lives, La Lacuna delightfully brings them alive in 3-D. What a listening treat. Her reading voice embodies each character distinctly. Bravo!

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Not her best work, not her worst


Not my favorite Kingsolver novel (that would be The Poisonwood Bible) but recommended to Kingsolver's fans. Great research and it reinforced some of the historical facts I had hiding way down deep in my pea brain. Of course, her writing is soooooo good.
My complaint is that it went on way too long.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Superb! Colorful! Engaging!!

We read the book, and then we listen to the book! Barbara Kingsolver’s near ration is spectacular! You can feel your self right in the story! It’s so easy to visualize everything! It was absolutely wonderful! I wanted more ...

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

As usual, unexpected surprises

This story is lengthy but well worth the listen. As usual Kingsolver’s writing is so well done and she develops and weaves together the characters in this almost autobiographical seeming story that combines fiction with history; it seems very believable and I had to listen to her disclaimer at the beginning again to be sure it wasn’t true.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

So much for us to learn, even through fiction.

This story brought into context how much history repeats itself.

Worth reading, try it out!

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

my new favorite book

There was never a more perfect book for me. I have so many favorite parts it's too overwhelming to write them down. But the fact that this lived up to it's premise from start to finish just blows my mind. This story will live in my heart always as "Art for the Hopeful" The narration was simply beautiful and made this story perfect.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Interesting take on the past 100 years

Very verbose and slow but also great glimpses into key events in US and Mexico from the 1920s to the late 1950s.

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