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
activate_proofit_target_DT_control

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
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Beautiful

Both timely and timeless. Barbara Kingsolver weaves a tale like no one else. Hearing her characters come to life at her narration - fantastic.

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
    4 out of 5 stars

Kingsolver is a magician

Theres always an element of lingering sadness, yet you dont want the story to end.

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

Slow start, annoying reader, disappointing

I'm a big Barbara Kingsolver fan so really was looking forward to her latest. Unfortunately I haven't been finding it very captivating, and the reader is so annoying I just couldn't stand it and gave up after about an hour of listening. The reader speaks in a sing-song voice, over-emphasizing words and over-enunciating consonants... basically, it sounds like she's reading a picture book aloud to a group of not overly-bright kindergarteners. She also has a slight lisp which is a bit irritating but I would have overlooked that if that were the only problem. Because of my faith in Kingsolver I might try reading the book instead of listening to it, but I have to say it's a pretty slow start and I'm not impressed so far...

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

wonderful sorry told in an intriguing way.

Absolutely beautiful writing. The story faltered toward the middle of the book for me, but came back around that wrapped up with me in tears.

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

Keep going, it’s interesting.

Narration in the beginning, was very hard to get into. Storyline didn’t make sense, and the pronunciation of words was very annoying. But keep going because the story is really interesting. It’s worth listening to. And the narration gets better as it goes along.

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

Best Kingsolver yet

What a magnificent weave to start at the beginning of a young life and return to it, in a breathless plunge at the end

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

Another top choice for me

I like everything this author writes and I enjoyed her reading as well. Loved the US history inclusion, especially because I experienced a lot of it first hand, The use of Mexican adages ( so old the earth was still warm) and the charming Appalachian accent of the secretary added to the overall depth of this highly enjoyable novel.

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Fabulous!

I loved this book. I think Kingsolver may be the most gifted writer of our time, and I was enchanted to hear her reading this wonderful new novel herself. Her gift for protraying different voices, most evident in Poisonwood Bible, is evident here, and carries through into her terrific speaking for this panoply of characters. I find Ms Kingsolver to be every bit as much a force of nature as the wonderful Frida Kahlo she portrays so richly in this beautiful new book.

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

The Lacuna

I liked the story but the authors narration was distracting to me. I thought it might have been better to have more than one person narrating. There was not enough difference between the voices of the characters Either male or female, they sounded the same. I think I would have enjoyed the book more if I had read it rather than listen to it.

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

An Absorbing Story

I loved this book and Kingsolver's narration. The story of a half American boy growing up in revolutionary Mexico and then caught up in the McCarthy Era kept my attention throughout, as long as it is. Not all authors are successful as readers of their audio books, but Kingsolver certainly is in this case. Her voice is easy to listen to, and the way she uses accents clearly distinguishes the various voices and points of view in the story. Immediately upon finishing, I started again at the beginning. A great companion for this book is The Hummingbird's Daughter, also narrated by its author, Luis Urrea. It takes place in the period of history preceding the time of The Lacuna. I've already listened to that book 3 times, but this one makes me want to go back to The Hummingbird's Daughter and read straight through to the end of the Lacuna. Both highly recommended, especially because of the view into the culture and history of Mexico.

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful