BOOK REVIEW: The Lacuna, by Barbara Kingsolver

NOT since reading Proust in my early twenties have I been so moved by a work of fiction. The Lacuna has one of the most arresting openings I know and by the end of the second sentence I was hooked.

“In the beginning were the howlers. They always commenced their bellowing in the first hour of dawn, just as the hem of the sky began to whiten."

In achingly beautiful language Barbara Kingsolver tells the story of Harrison Shepherd, son of a feckless Mexican mother with a passion for dating powerful men and a dull American government accountant. Following their divorce she takes Harrison back to the land of her birth where he grows up lonely and without any early schooling. His education comes through reading some of the dusty old books in the domestic library of his mother’s lover, while through his only friend Leandro, the cook, he gains a penchant for food preparation which is to stay with him for the rest of his days.

The novel follows his course over a period of thirty years. The author skilfully shows how, in an era of political and artistic turbulence and uncertainty, Harrison is affected and changed by his experiences. Discovering early on his love of writing when he begins keeping a journal, it is in the form of diary entries that the reader accompanies him on his personal journey. Apart from a few minor ones the characters are superbly well drawn and the sense of location and time, particularly in the parts of the novel set in Mexico, are vibrant and almost strong enough to feel as if they’re rising up from the page.

Once a teenager his mother, Salome, sends Harrison back to Washington to live with his estranged father, who quickly dispatches him to a military academy. While there the young man witnesses the Bonus March of July 28th 1932. As a homosexual he avoids military draft, returning to Mexico where he resumes his employ in the household of muralist Diego Rivera and his wife, the painter Frida Kahlo as cook, having already done occasional plastering work for Rivera prior to leaving for the U.S.

Harrison becomes Kahlo’s confidant and when Trotsky and his wife arrive as permanent house guests he also acts as Trotsky’s secretary, meticulous typing up the reams of notes and articles he writes every day. After Trotsky is assassinated Harrison returns to the U.S. His life in Ashville, North Carolina is a fascinating portrayal of small town 1940s America. Here he turns his boyhood fascination with the Mexican Aztec into a series of best selling novels. His unexpected fame, however, sits uneasily with him until eventually his fear of public attention gains him the reputation of reclusive writer.

The relationship with his stenographer, Violet Brown, is handled with great charm and sensitivity. An enviable association of mutual respect and protectorship it provides a welcome antidote during the hostile climate of 1950s McCarthyism which Harrison unintentionally falls prey to and which ultimately leads to his untimely end.

Here is a remarkable writing talent, able to seamlessly weave real people and events into a fascinating fictional tale. I shall undoubtedly want to revisit this novel many times in the future and in the meantime look forward to correcting my unwitting omission of not having read any of Barbara Kingsolver’s work before.

REF. The Lacuna, by Barbara Kingsolver
Publisher: Faber and Faber (22 April 2010), 670 pages, pb

23/08/10