The Lacuna

Harrison Shepherd, an American boy raised in a series of precarious households in 1930s Mexico, finds his footing through the vibrant artistic and political currents of the era. Working as a plaster mixer for muralist Diego Rivera, he is drawn into the orbit of Frida Kahlo and the exiled revolutionary Leon Trotsky. As the world descends into the Second World War, Shepherd is pulled between the revolutionary fervor of Mexico and the bureaucratic, surveillance-heavy atmosphere of the United States, where he seeks to define his own identity against the backdrop of national history.

Kingsolver employs a dual narrative structure, interweaving Shepherd’s first-person recollections with the detached, clinical reports of his stenographer, Mrs. Brown. This epistolary contrast highlights the gap between lived experience and public record, exploring how history is constructed through memory, omission, and institutional bias. The novel is a richly detailed meditation on the porous boundaries between nations and the personal cost of political upheaval, rendered in Kingsolver’s characteristic blend of lyrical prose and historical precision.

Description adapted from Open Library ↗.