The Lacuna

Locations
Call Number: BOCD Fiction
On Shelf At: Downtown Library

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	BOCD Fiction	4-week checkout	On Shelf

"With tracks every 3 minutes for easy book marking"--Container.
Narrated by the author.
It's the 1930s, and while Harrison Shepherd works for Mexican painter Diego Rivera, he's also becoming the confidante of Diego's wife, Frida Kahlo. Later forced to flee to the U.S., Shepherd retells his remarkable story through a series of letters and diary entries.
Compact disc.

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

The Lacuna submitted by Jen Chapin-Smith on August 30, 2013, 9:36am "The Lacuna" explores deep issues of political importance and identity, including Mexican and U.S. nationalities, communism and anti-communism, and class.

Harrison William Shepherd was born in Mexico to a Mexican mother and raised there for many years until she decides to take a step up the social ladder through marriage and so first sends him to a school for children with cognitive disabilities (although Harrison does not have one), then to his father in the United States. There, Harrison witnesses how horribly World War I veterans are being treated and how bad the lives of so many poor people are in the beginning of the Great Depression.

Later, Harrison returns to Mexico where he begins working for artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, learning pride in his Mexican heritage. They introduce him to Leon Trotsky, from whom he learn about class and communism.

After Trotsky's assassination, Harrison returns to the United States and becomes a writer whose novels focus on Mexican history. Yet he comes to the attention of the House Un-American Activities Committee who twist his words to portray him as an anti-American communist. Harrison begins burning his diaries in attempt to (we later learn) hide the fact that he is gay and hide his boyfriend's identity to protect him.

The novel particularly condemns our society's efforts to scapegoat and divide people. It makes one wish more people knew about the United States' role in the Cold War and how it hurt people in and outside the US. It also addresses many people's general contempt for people with disabilities and low-income people.

KINGSOLVER!! submitted by krathje on August 2, 2016, 2:08pm Barbara Kingsolver narrates her own book!! This is fabulous!! Kingsolver does her research and writes beautifully -- historical, artistic, lyrical, narrative!