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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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Applicable to our current times

Having read the book several years ago I remembered the now familiar political aspects and wanted to hear about them again. The author as narrator was a delightful surprise and of course except for a setting in Mexico the storyline is what is real to us these days. The reader can say this is happening again all over the world. We are reminded of America’s dark history and perhaps our future. This book should be required reading in high schools that are banning books or rewriting history books.

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Great title

It didn’t change my world, but it came together nicely. The heartbreak of a martyr was endearing, and the errors of a generation gut-wrenching. The protagonist, I will remember.

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Such beauty

Love that Barbara Kingsolver narrates so many of her books. It really adds something so beautiful. This is a deeply moving, soulful book and I never wanted it to end.

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A forgotten history

Wonderful story weaving fiction and history. A time that many of us would do well to study and remember

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Disappointing

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

No. It could have been a great read but the voice of the narrator is most irritating.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

The narrator is awful. She doesn't read well, her intonations are off, and her voice is like a school teacher's talking to a 4 year old.

Any additional comments?

I wish I had bought the book rather the narration.

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Need a different narrator

Is there anything you would change about this book?

I always love Barbara Kingsolver stories but I don't like the way she reads. She sounds like she's reading to an elementary age child. Very hard to listen to her reading her own story.

Would you be willing to try another one of Barbara Kingsolver’s performances?

No.

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What a superb novel

In haste... I can't think when I was so swept away by a novel. A glorious play on the idea of narrative--history, fiction, the fictionality of history, the truths that the very best and most imaginative fiction can convey. I was hooked from the beginning, swept along by the story, but the prose is sos fine that I kept skipping back to replay a paragraph here, a paragraph there. I loved the characterisation of Kahlo and Trotsky, and of the protagonist. I tried to read The Poisonwood Bible years ago and I'm not sure I finished it, but The Lacuna is a masterpiece.

And what made it perfect for me was Kingsolver's reading. Not often a writer is also so fine a performer.

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Tip top!

A terrific audiobook of a terrific novel! Great job! Barbara Kingsolver was a great narrator.

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Loved this one

I've listened to many other books by Barbara Kingsolver and they are amongst my favorites. But the description of this one just didn't spark my interest. Still, so many people said they loved it, and since I love so many of her other books, I decided to give it a try. I'm so glad I did! A beautiful story, read by the author, in her lovely and careful way. Kingsolver never disappoints me.

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Beautiful

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

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