There is no doubt that Barbara Kingsolver is one of the finest authors of our time, and The Lacuna upholds that reputation. She explored issues of identity through myriad competing and complementing characters in her two best-known books, The Poisonwood Bible and Prodigal Summer. Now, with The Lacuna, she offers two astonishingly well-realized characters whose mutual dependence contrasts with their very different views of the world.
Harrison Shepherd is the center of the story. A boy when his mother flees back to Mexico as the mistress of a wealthy man, he has no real place on the isolated island where they live. Neither Mexican nor American, rich nor poor, educated or illiterate, servant or patron, the only place he feels at home is in the ocean, where he should be most out of place. There, and in the pages of his diary, he is free to live outside the expectations of others.
As Harrison grows, those expectations take on the form of names that others bestow on him. At the American military school he attends for a short time, he is “Pancho Villa.” To his eventual employers he is “Sweet Buns,” “Insolito,“, or “young Shepherd.” ”Sweet Buns” is the gift of Diego Rivera, who discovers that Harrison mixes the best plaster for his frescoes, while also baking the breads and pastries Rivera loves so much. And “young Shepherd” is the name given to him by Lev Davidovitch Bronstein, better known to the world as Leon Trotsky. Harrison is a full-fledged member of the household when Rivera offers Trotsky refuge from Joseph Stalin’s assassins, and he becomes a second secretary to the embattled Trotsky. He is witness to and transcriber of the outpouring of letters, articles, polemics, and eloquent pleas that the exiled Trotsky maintained in his uncompromising opposition to Stalin, and comes to genuinely admire, even love, Trotsky the man.
But Insolito is the name he takes to heart, since it is given to him by Frida Kahlo, with whom he shares a deep friendship and respect. She is the only person who sees him as he is and encourages his budding talent as a writer. She is also one of a select few who know that Harrison is homosexual. And she proves to be his savior when official reaction to Trotsky’s assassination threatens their lives.
This story is told through Harrison’s diary, a remarkable document in which he recounts the details of his daily conversations and the sights and smells of Mexico. Under Rivera’s artistic spell, he comes to realize that the rhythms of ancient Mexico are not very far removed from the 20th century, and discovers the path to his vocation. Harrison becomes an historical novelist, telling the tales of the Aztecs and Maya before and during the Spanish conquest in ways that resonate with American readers. His work becomes immensely popular and he takes on a new and unwelcome identity, that of the public figure.
To help him deal with the correspondence, accounting, and manuscripts, he hires Mrs. Violet Brown, a relatively young woman who is nonetheless a longtime widow. Raised in the deepest backwoods of Appalachia, Violet educated herself and has maintained her independence. She has a very clear view of the world, understanding the implications of his actions far better than Harrison, a reticent romantic, ever could. In the heady days of World War II, his wide-eyed naivete fits with the times; when the war ends and the crusade against Communism begins, Violet recognizes that his public status makes Harrison a target and tries to warn him. She understands that this is not the time or place for nuance, context, or metaphor, and by the time he heeds her words, the full press of McCarthyist tactics has already isolated him and ended his career.
The mechanism Kingsolver uses to present this story is not unique—an unidentified archivist is organizing Harrison’s diaries for publication and explaining to the reader the setting in which each diary was either written or reconstructed. The art that Kingsolver adds to it, though, is the differentiation among the various voices. The archivist tries to be neutral but deep emotion rises closer to the surface with every additional note. Harrison’s personal diary entries become more expressive and intimate as the boy becomes a man. During Trotsky’s stay, he writes in the dry tones of a recording secretary, honoring Frida Kahlo’s wish that Harrison avoid writing anything that might be used against Trotsky; true to his name Insolito, he still manages to write pointed commentary within those pages. And finally, letters between Harrison and Kahlo strike a perfect tone that captures the friendship and student/teacher relationship between the two. This careful assembly of a written record is the perfect format to show the creation and destruction of a decent man.
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Loved this book and all of Kingsolver’s works that I have read. I also reviewed it recently and hope it doesn’t take as many years for her next work.
Thanks for checking out my review, although I think yours more elegantly captures the ferment of Shepherd’s youthful life. I would add my recommendation to try Prodigal Summer. Talk about ferment!