A Review By Carolyn Dews

‘The Lacuna’ follows the life of a fictional writer Harrison Shepherd from 1929 to the 1950s. The story opens with Harrison living in Mexico with his flapper mother, Salome and her Mexican lover whom she has left his father in the USA for. Harrison goes to work for Diego Rivera and ends up in the middle of art and revolution.  He goes back and forth between Mexico and the USA.

 I found ‘The Lacuna’ to be unusual as the story unfolds in a series of diary entries, letters and paper clippings.  Although it is a work of fiction, it includes true events for example, the lives of the famed muralist Diego Rivera, his wife Frida Kahlo and the exiled Bolshevik leader Lev Trotsky. Loyalty and identity are important in this rich novel. An interesting read if not quite as great as ‘The Poisonwood Bible’.