The Lacuna

Kingsolver, Barbara

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 057125263X ISBN 13: 9780571252633

Publisher: Faber & Faber, 2009

The Lacuna is the heartbreaking story of a man's search for safety of a man torn beween the warm heart of Mexico and the cold embrace of 1950s McCarthyite America.

Born in the U.S. and reared in Mexico, Harrison Shepherd is a liability to his social-climbing flapper mother, Salomé. Making himself useful in the household of the famed Mexican artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, and exiled Bolshevik leader Lev Trotsky, young Shepherd inadvertently casts his lot with art and revolution. A violent upheaval sends him north to a nation newly caught up in World War II. In the mountain city of Asheville, North Carolina he remakes himself in America's hopeful image. But political winds continue to throw him between north and south, in a plot that turns many times on the unspeakable breach - the lacuna - between truth and public presumption.

A gripping story of identity, loyalty and the devastating power of accusations to destroy innocent people. The Lacuna is as deep and rich as the New World.

Review:

"Barbara Kingsolver is one of my favourite writers. The Lacuna is a fascinating, compelling book" --Kate Atkinson

'Even more engrossing [than The Poisonwood Bible].' --Daily Mail

'Every few years, you read a book that makes everything else in life seem unimportant ... Tender, tragic, always compelling.' --Independent on Sunday

'Kingsolver keenly explores the links between big historical events and individual lives.' --Financial Times

'Kingsolver stands up for the enduring and redemptive power of a good story.' --The Times

'An epic tale ... This remarkable novel is a finely crafted story of identity and loyalty.'
--Daily Express

'Breathtaking ... dazzling ... Kingsolver gives voice to truths whose teller could express them only in silence.' --New York Times Book Review

'Kingsolver hasn't lost her touch ... A rich, sprawling saga ... teems with dark beauty.' --People Magazine

'A refresher course in the richly drawn characters and tangled cultural crossings of Kingsolver's fiction.' --O, The Oprah Magazine

'Her most ambitious, timely, and powerful novel yet. Well worth the wait.' --Library Journal

Book Description:

The Orange Prize-winning novel from the bestselling author of The Poisonwood Bible.