Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
The Lacuna  By  cover art

The Lacuna

By: Barbara Kingsolver
Narrated by: Barbara Kingsolver
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $35.09

Buy for $35.09

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

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

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    884
  • 4 Stars
    377
  • 3 Stars
    200
  • 2 Stars
    121
  • 1 Stars
    80
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    674
  • 4 Stars
    184
  • 3 Stars
    92
  • 2 Stars
    53
  • 1 Stars
    46
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    671
  • 4 Stars
    213
  • 3 Stars
    80
  • 2 Stars
    55
  • 1 Stars
    37

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    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.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    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 ...

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    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.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    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!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    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.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    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.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Always the most wonderous English

It is such a pleasure to hear English spoken with such flavor and colorful delight. Complicated and enticing.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

Another Disappointing Narration

Before writing this review I looked over what others have written. I concur with the numerous negative comments on Ms Kingsolver's narration of this story. The only reason I am writing this review is to point out that she has always narrated her own books. In the past her gentle, new-age voice has been appropriate. It was perfect for Prodigal Summer and was part of that book's charm for me. In this case is was just dreadful. I think that the book was good enough that someone should re-record it.
The only other negative comment I have is that it was a bit didactic. Sometimes it stopped being a story and turned into a straight-up history lecture. I happen to be very familiar with the events of this era having lived through them in a conscious state. Otherwise I might have found them as shocking as did Ms Kingsolver. The three stars I have given this book is for its content. The narration is -1.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

A Fascinating Journey

This is a memorable tale surrounding the real events in the world that led to the witch hunts of the McCarthy investigations. It is reminder of what happens when governments use fear to strip citizens of their privacy and their constitutional rights.
Barbara Kingsolver's reading adds to the book. In my opinion, if you like her writing, you'll like her reading.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Stick to writing please

I love Barbara Kingsolver's novels, and I enjoyed this one a great deal. I liked the part set in Mexico much more. The Ashville part was slow not nearly as compelling.

What I did NOT like was the narrator. It was excruciating to listen to. I did not realize it was Barabara Kingsolver until just now (weeks after finishing the book). I had to buy it and read it because I could not bare the narration.

I feel badly about criticizing such a wonderful writer but, really, let the audio people have their jobs! Let the pros do it. I have heard from fabulous narrators on audible.com.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful