The Lacuna, by Barbara Kingsolver

A lacuna can mean a “hole,” “an emptiness,” or a “missing piece.” All these definitions come into play in some way in Barbara Kingsolver’s newest novel. Set in both Mexico and the United States (specifically Asheville NC), the main character, Harrison William Shepherd (there are plays on all those words, too), is at home in neither. Shepherd is abandoned by his cold American bureaucrat father; haphazardly raised by his Mexican flapper mother; serves as a cook to real artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, and is later secretary to Leon Trotsky, before becoming a bestselling author. The book ranges between Mexican revolutionary politics and the climate of fear during the period of McCarthy’s HUAC investigations without losing sight of the very human Shepherd caught up in the midst of these turbulent times. 507 pp.