There he becomes a reclusive, gentlemanly author of swashbuckling Mexican historical novels (“Vassals of Majesty,” “Pilgrims of Chapultepec”) until the ungentlemanly House Un-American Activities Committee drags him into the spotlight, rewriting his character in crude strokes for the public stage.And: “The Lacuna” can be enjoyed sheerly for the music of its passages on nature, archaeology, food and friendship or for its portraits of real and invented people or for its harmonious choir of voices. But in 1940, when Trotsky is assassinated, Shepherd leaves Mexico, spooked by the virulent press that denounces his employers and their murdered ward “like the howlers on Isla Pixol.” At the age of 24, he returns to the United States and settles in Asheville, N.C. Baking bread by day, he records the daily dramas of this entourage by night, along with a draft of his first novel, an epic of the Aztec empire. In this incendiary, revolutionary household, Shepherd keeps mum and lets louder egos roar, just as he did on Isla Pixol. Bovary messes, Shepherd parlays his domestic skills into a job mixing plaster for Diego Rivera’s murals (“It’s like making dough for pan dulce”) and joins the Rivera household as cook and typist for Rivera, his artist wife, Frida Kahlo, and later for their guest, the exiled Communist leader Leon Trotsky.

Barbara Kingsolver’s Artists and Idolsīy Liesl Schillinger Leaving his mother to her Mme. There are gaps, or lacunae, in the story, hence the title. However, she saves his diaries and letters and it is these papers that form the bulk of the novel. He instructs his secretary, Violet Brown, to burn his papers and returns to Mexico.

Later in life, living in Asheville, North Carolina, Shepherd becomes a novelist and is subsequently investigated by the House Un-American Activities Committee. While living with and working for them, he also begins working as a secretary for Leon Trotsky who is hiding there, exiled by Stalin. During his time in Mexico he works as a plaster mixer for the mural artist Diego Rivera then as a cook for both him and his artist wife Frida Kahlo, with whom Shepherd develops a lifelong friendship. His parents are separated so he lives back and forth between the United States with his father and Mexico with his mother. The novel tells the story of Harrison William Shepherd beginning with his childhood in Mexico during the 1930s.

It was shortlisted for the 2011 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. It is Kingsolver's sixth novel, and won the 2010 Orange Prize for Fiction and the Library of Virginia Literary Award. The Lacuna The Lacuna is a 2009 novel by Barbara Kingsolver.

The lacuna book review