The Most Important Part of the Story...

 
Thanks to treasured but distant friend Deb Olson for prompting me to read the latest Barbara Kingsolver novel The Lacuna.  Full disclosure:  I am a long-time fan of Kingsolver (we share some Kentucky/Arizona/global connections, but have never met one on one) and have read almost everything she has written. .Even when I am oh-so-rarely disappointed (eg; Prodigal Summer seemed like the not-quite-right love child of  some kind of overheated Harlequin Romance paperback and the most stupifying and simplistic environmental propaganda possible), I always come away a little more informed and just a bit wiser and reflective about some of the complexities of everyday life.

Her latest, The Lacuna, reminds me why, in my opinion, she remains one of the most important US writers working today.  Although the story is set and closes many decades ago (mid 20th century), the parallels to so many of the most pervasive and destructive social forces of today are evident throughout.  What could we learn from the experiences of a fictional, multi-cultural, talented, sensitive, non-visible minority who happens to 'accidently' interact with almost as many game-changing world figures (Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, Lev Trotsky, Richard Nixon to name a few) as the equally fictional Forrest Gump?  Ends up quite a bit.

I strongly recommend this one.  Read it for fun-she is a good writer, after all- and also for  a window on a time already forgotten by most. Take a moment or two to think about how it relates to our current socio-political climate. 

In the novel, the narrator (and others) note that 'the most important part of the story is what you don't know'.

Any on-line dictionary will reveal at least two definitions of 'lacuna':

1)  a missing part, and
2) a small opening, 'just a crack'

The importance of these absent pieces and fragile pathways is a thread that weaves throughout the narrative.

Pick it up and see what you think.  Here is what just a few others say:

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Kingsolver's ambitious new novel, her first in nine years (after the The Poisonwood Bible), focuses on Harrison William Shepherd, the product of a divorced American father and a Mexican mother. After getting kicked out of his American military academy, Harrison spends his formative years in Mexico in the 1930s in the household of Diego Rivera; his wife, Frida Kahlo; and their houseguest, Leon Trotsky, who is hiding from Soviet assassins. After Trotsky is assassinated, Harrison returns to the U.S., settling down in Asheville, N.C., where he becomes an author of historical potboilers (e.g., Vassals of Majesty) and is later investigated as a possible subversive. Narrated in the form of letters, diary entries and newspaper clippings, the novel takes a while to get going, but once it does, it achieves a rare dramatic power that reaches its emotional peak when Harrison wittily and eloquently defends himself before the House Un-American Activities Committee (on the panel is a young Dick Nixon). Employed by the American imagination, is how one character describes Harrison, a term that could apply equally to Kingsolver as she masterfully resurrects a dark period in American history with the assured hand of a true literary artist. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Bookmarks Magazine

The Lacuna contains two very distinct parts. One features a vibrant Mexican landscape with the equally colorful personalities of Rivera, Kahlo, and Trotsky. The other centers more on Harrison's reclusive existence in small-town America and his battle with the House Un-American Activities Committee. Despite the prodigious research that both parts exhibit, critics clearly preferred the former, marveling at Kingsolver's lyrical passages and her expert recreation of 1930s Mexico. A few reviewers also noted instances of sermonizing and inaccurate history. However, the novel's compelling, engrossing story certainly outweighed these minor complaints, and in the end, Kingsolver has created a convincing "tableau vivant of epochs and people that time has transformed almost past recognition" (New York Times Book Review). --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

“A sweeping mural of sensory delights and stimulating ideas about art, government, identity and history…Readers will feel the sting of connection between then and now.” (Seattle Times )

“Masterful…a reader receives the great gift of entering not one but several worlds…The final pages haunt me still.” (San Francisco Chronicle Book Review )

“A lavishly gifted writer... Kingsolver [has a] wonderful ear for the quirks of human repartee. The Lacuna is richly spiked with period language... This book grabs at the heartstrings...” (Los Angeles Times )

“The most mature and ambitious [novel] she’s written…An absorbing portrayal of American life…A rich novel [with] a large, colorful canvas…A tender story about a thoughtful man.” (Washington Post )

“Shepherd’s story in Kingsolver’s accomplished literary hands is so seductive, the prose so elegant, the architecture of the novel so imaginative, it becomes hard to peel away from the book” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette )

“A work that is often close to magic.... Much research underlies this complex weaving...but the work is lofted by lyric prose.” (Denver Post )

“Breathtaking...dazzling...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...But the fuller value...lies in its call to conscience and connection.” (New York Times Book Review )

“Compelling…Kingsolver’s descriptions of life in Mexico City burst with sensory detail—thick sweet breads, vividly painted walls, the lovely white feet of an unattainable love.” (The New Yorker )

“A sweeping narrative of utopian dreams and political reality…A stirring novel…intimate and pitch-perfect.” (San Diego Union-Tribune )

“The novel achieves a rare dramatic power...Kingsolver masterfully resurrects a dark period in American history with the assured hand of a true literary artist.” (Publishers Weekly (starred review) )

“[Kingsolver’s] playful pastiche brings to vivid life the culture wars of an earlier era...” (Vogue )

“Rich…impassioned…engrossing…Politics and art dominate the novel, and their overt, unapologetic connection is refreshing.” (Chicago Tribune )

“...True and riveting...Barbara Kingsolver has invented a wondrous filling here, sweeter and thicker than pan dulce, spicy as the hottest Mexican chiles, paranoid as the American government hunting Communists ” (Philadelphia Inquirer )

“Kingsolver deftly combines real history and the life of the fictional protagonist…A sweeping tale.” (Atlanta Journal-Constitution )

“[Kingsolver] hasn’t lost her touch...she delivers her signature blend of exotic locale, political backdrop and immediately engaging story line...teems with dark beauty.” (People )

“[Kingsolver] stirs the real with the imagined to produce a breathtakingly ambitious book, bold and rich…hopeful, political and artistic. The Lacuna fills a lacuna with powerfully imagined social history (Kansas City Star )

Product Description

In this powerfully imagined, provocative novel, Barbara Kingsolver takes us on an epic journey from the Mexico of artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo to the America of Pearl Harbor, FDR, and J. Edgar Hoover. The Lacuna is the poignant story of a man pulled between two nations as well as an unforgettable portrait of the artist—and of art itself.

About the Author

Barbara Kingsolver is the author of seven works of fiction, including the novels The Poisonwood Bible, Animal Dreams, and The Bean Trees, as well as books of poetry, essays, and creative nonfiction such as Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. In 2000, she was awarded the National Humanities Medal, our country's highest honor for service through the arts. She lives with her family on a farm in southern Appalachia.

From The Washington Post

From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com Reviewed by by Ron Charles Barbara Kingsolver's new novel, "The Lacuna," is the most mature and ambitious one she's written during her celebrated 20-year career, but it's also her most demanding. Spanning three decades, the story comes to us as a collection of diary entries and memoir, punctuated by archivist's notes, newspaper articles, letters, book reviews and congressional transcripts involving some of the 20th century's most radical figures. The sweetness that leavened "The Bean Trees" and "Animal Dreams" has been burned away, and the lurid melodrama that enlivened "The Poisonwood Bible" has been replaced by the cool realism of a narrator who feels permanently alienated from the world. That central, though oddly faint, character is Harrison Shepherd, a popular writer of romantic adventure novels. Kingsolver neatly weaves this quiet, watchful man through tumultuous events that rocked two countries, and one of the most impressive feats of "The Lacuna" is how convincingly she tracks his developing voice, from when he's a sensitive teenager in 1929 until he becomes a national celebrity in the early 1950s. The story begins in Mexico when Shepherd is 13, but we gradually learn that he was born in Washington, D.C., the product of a doomed marriage between a dull federal bureaucrat and a saucy Mexican beauty. His mother has abandoned America and taken up with a brutal right-wing businessman in tropical Isla Pixol, hoping to land a better husband. Alone and without any formal education, Shepherd begins reading moldy adventure novels and Mexican history, and he also takes up the lifelong practice of journal writing -- "the beginning of hope: a prisoner's plan for escape." Those journals, carefully transcribed and surreptitiously preserved years later, become the bulk of this complicated novel. A "permanent foreigner," not at home in the United States or Mexico and aware that his budding homosexuality must not be expressed, young Shepherd quickly develops an outsider's detached perspective, tinged with loneliness. He has a sharp eye for the beauty of Mexico, its lush tropics and its colorful towns, and Kingsolver convincingly positions him near some of the era's larger-than-life figures. A handy cook, he gets a job making plaster for the Mexican muralist Diego Rivera and eventually becomes a part of his household. Rivera and his wife, the painter Frida Kahlo, leap off these pages in all their flamboyant passion and brilliance, repeatedly cheating on and punishing each other, even while their international reputation blossoms. As Kahlo's closeted gay confidant, Shepherd offers this gifted female artist a rare chance to share her frustrations about her husband and the shadow he casts over her work. Shepherd's connection with Rivera and Kahlo, both committed communists, quickly brings him into contact with their contentious friend Leon Trotsky, and this fascinating section shows the Russian Revolution from the perspective of one of its reviled and isolated engineers. Constantly at risk of assassination by Stalin's death squads, Trotsky and his frightened wife remain awkwardly holed up in Rivera's house, trying to carry on the workers' battle without money, without an army, without anything but his prodigious writings, which Shepherd neatly types up for him each day. In this touching portrayal of a doomed idealist, the out-maneuvered leader can hardly ignore his irrelevancy. "In 1917 I commanded an army of five million men," he tells Shepherd. "Now I command eleven hens." It's a loser's game trying to estimate the peculiar boundaries of my own ignorance, but I'm willing to go out on a limb and suggest that most readers could use more background than we get here on Trotsky, Rivera and Kahlo. Kingsolver has made Shepherd's diary so realistic that it shows little sense of the needs of some future, public readership. But for the truly interested, background information is newly available: Bertrand M. Patenaude recently published "Trotsky: Downfall of a Revolutionary," a biography of the man's final years in exile. And this month, Robert Service completes his trilogy on the founders of the Soviet Union with "Trotsky." Both books offer a lively and finely detailed description of the bizarre household that Kingsolver dramatizes. The second half of "The Lacuna" shifts, like "The Poisonwood Bible," from an exotic foreign land to the United States. Shepherd moves to a small town in North Carolina in the 1940s and eventually finds himself in the odd position of being an agoraphobic, homosexual heartthrob to millions of female readers. "Nearly every day," he confesses, "I wake up shocked at how little in this world I comprehend." Though this section is much less dramatic than his adventures in Mexico, it offers an absorbing portrayal of American life at a time when the country moved swiftly from Depression, to World War, to consumerism spun through with political paranoia. The other considerable pleasure of this second half is the subtle depiction of Shepherd's relationship with his discreet secretary, Violet Brown, a 46-year-old widow, "sensible as pancake flour," who speaks in the antiquated English of Shakespeare's day. Theirs is an intense but formal affiliation, cemented by her devotion and his respect. In the notes she supplies to Shepherd's journals, she remarks on his "secretive temperament" and suggests that he suffered from "some kind of dread that went past the bashfulness." But she's determined to preserve his memory, even if he exists in these voluminous clippings and diary entries only as a kind of lacuna, or missing space, whose life is suggested by the shape of everything he describes around him. It's a lovely portrait of an intensely private writer, a man who suffered both the benefits of fame and the horrible costs. From beginning to end, though, this is also a novel of capital-L Liberal ideas -- workers' rights, sexual equality, artistic freedom -- the kind of progressive causes that Kingsolver tries to encourage with her Bellwether Prize for socially responsible fiction. More often than not, that's a recipe for Literature for the Betterment of the People, in which all the precious brown-skinned characters and the requisite Mystical Negro line up against a battalion of wicked white landowners. Kingsolver is far too good a writer for that (though not all the Bellwether winners are), but the concluding section of "The Lacuna," in which Shepherd is harassed by J. Edgar Hoover's cronies, recites a predictable Red Scare story we've heard many times before: the just-the-facts FBI agent who asks incriminating questions, the mysterious collapse of the blacklisted writer's career, the outrageous behavior of the House Un-American Activities Committee. Considering the audience for literary fiction -- Kingsolver's in particular -- it's unlikely that "The Lacuna" will shock or change a single right-thinking mind. Nevertheless, this rich novel is certainly bigger than its politics. It resurrects several dramatic events of the early 20th century that have fallen out of public consciousness, brings alive the forgotten details of everyday life in the 1940s, and illustrates how attitudes and prejudices are shaped by political opportunism and the rapacious media. But despite this large, colorful canvas, ultimately "The Lacuna" is a tender story about a thoughtful man who just wanted to enjoy that basic American right: the right to be left alone. As he was fond of saying, "The most important part of the story is the piece of it you don't know." charlesr@washpost.com
Copyright 2009, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved. -

Three Day Road....a thoughtful and thought-provoking page-turner

 

 'All Not So Quiet on the Western Front' -WWI seen through the eyes of a gifted storyteller, Joseph, Boyden, winner of the 2005 McNally Robinson Aboriginal Book of the Year, and cited as one of the The Globe and Mail's One Hundred Best Books of 2005. 

I recommend it, too. See a few other reviews below.

 

 

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Joseph Boyden's first novel is the story of two Cree friends, Xavier and Elijah, who leave their pristine northern country to end up in the horrific trenches of World War I. Loosely based on the real life of a famous Canadian sniper, the story is told from two first-person views: those of Xavier and his old aunt and only living relative, Niska. After the war, Niska is taking her wounded nephew back home north to the bush in a canoe. Their trip is the three-day road of the title, which also refers to the journey taken after death. The story of the war is told in flashbacks on this journey as Xavier recovers from morphine addiction. Niska also relates various stories to Xavier, believing there is "medicine in the tale."
Boyden is a natural storyteller. Both the Native tales of the north and the grim accounts of the war in France and Belgium have the ring of truth. His images can be subtly appropriate--raiders who go over the top are "eaten by the night"--and his characterizations are excellent, especially the three main players and Xavier's Canadian trenchmates. Eventually, Elijah seems to feed on the death all around him, becoming a "windigo," while Xavier begins to question the sanity of the war and his friend's growing madness, realizing "we all fight on two fronts, the one facing the enemy, the one facing what we do to the enemy." Not for the squeamish reader, this is a powerful novel that takes a new angle on a popular subject, "the war to end all wars." --Mark Frutkin, Amazon.ca --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. When Cree Indians Xavier Bird and Elijah Whiskeyjack join the Canadian Army in 1915, they expect to go to France, become warriors and kill Germans. What they don't expect is that the war will drive one of them mad and make the other a morphine-addicted cripple. This is Boyden's first novel (after the story collection Born with a Tooth), a powerful tale of two young men numbed by the horrors and brutality of trench warfare. Boyden vividly portrays the chaos, fear, cowardice and courage of infantrymen condemned to wallow in the mud and blood of the Western Front. Best friends Xavier and Elijah are both expert sharpshooters and, using the field craft they learned hunting in the forests of Hudson Bay, quickly become accomplished snipers. Elijah is outgoing and boastful, while Xavier is quiet and reserved, but both are deadly efficient soldiers. A parallel story line tells of Niska, Xavier's aunt, a Cree Indian prophet and healer, as she tells of the sad decline of Cree culture and waits for her nephew to come home. As the war drags on, one of the men's addiction to drugs and killing causes him to take extreme risks; when he finally commits murder to hide the ugly truth, his friend sees only one solution to save his own soul. Friendship is riven with resentment and war is stripped of glory in this remarkable, wrenching novel, the work of a gifted storyteller. Agent, Nicole Winstanley at Westwood Creative Artists (Toronto). 6-city author tour. (May 9)

Alpenglo in the Big City?-(Pacific Style)

Views from Oahu hotel

Breezy Pacific Sunset

Waikiki evening

HOSW-Opening Ceremonies

Hawaiian hosts and friends
prepare to welcome the delegations

Relaxing on the beach

Refreshing seascape

Speakers's podium

Relaxing woman

The opening ceremonies for the Healing our Spirits Worldwide Sixth Gathering were held about an hour and half outside Honolul on the northeast shore, near Kualoa, a sacred site. Delegations from the visiting countries arrived by outrigger canoe to be greeted by the Native Hawaiian hosts.  Dances and speeches and luau feast followed....

Arriving delegation

Traditional sailing canoe attracts visitors

Scenes from HOSW Gathering-Hawaii snapshots

Sacred stones at entrance to Waimea Sanctuary

The Healing Our Spirits Worldwide (HOSW) Sixth Gathering in Honolulu, HI attracted over 2500 participants from around the world- most from Canada, New Zealand and Australia- joining a sizeable contingent of hosting Native Hawaiians and a fewAmericans and Europeans.  The agenda was both jam-packed and diverse with lots of opportunity for networking and exchanging perspectives.

Healing our Spirits Worldwide Sixth Gathering

Here are just a few snapshots:

Plumeria lei-fragrant 'hello'

Lush botanical gardens

Waimea Valley on North Shore-biological sanctuary
 and site of  cultural arts festival

Interpretive Signs in the Gardens

Graceful Monkey Tree

Out the window enroute to Waimea

Healing Our Spirit Worldwide-North meets South (and East and West)

I will be traveling with some of my Canadian (and Alaskan) colleagues  this week and next to participate in this meeting in Hawaii.  For those unfamiliar with HOSW, I encourage you to check out the  website and review the History/Covenant created at earlier gatherings.  See background info and website link below.  Consider becoming a friend to this important movement.  Healing Our Spirit  Worldwide (HOSW)  The Sixth Gathering  Honolulu, HI  September 3-10, 2010 http://www.hosw.com/index.php OSW History/Covenant The Healing Our Spirit Movement The Healing Our Spirit Worldwide movement began as one person’s vision to create an international forum and movement focused on the alcohol and drug abuse issues and programs in Indigenous communities throughout the global community. With the Second Gathering (1994) in Sydney, Australia and the Third (1998) in Rotorua, Aotearoa (New Zealand), HOSW established itself as the international cultural and spiritual movement celebrating the tenacity and resilience of Indigenous peoples around the world in the struggle against alcohol and drug abuse. The fourth gathering of HOSW held in Albuquerque, New Mexico (2002), expanded the vision with the inclusion of health and governance issues. The Fourth Gathering provided two important developments: • The Covenant – a document to be designed for use at many levels, promoting health  and healing and ensuring these issues have a prominent place in the everyday life of  Indigenous peoples around the world – was formulated to provide guidance and direction  for Indigenous peoples in developing models of healing, self-determination and wholeness. • The International Indigenous Council (HOSW IIC), the vision-keeping and advisory body  consisting of Indigenous leaders from different countries. The Fifth Gathering expanded the vision with the inclusion of health and governance issues in relation to alcohol and drug abuse Held in Edmonton, Canada (2006) saw increased participation of indigenous Peoples from the Pacific and expanded the vision of the Covenant  of HOSW to make it one of the world’s most remarkable documents. The Fifth Gathering’s Indigenous Delegation from Central and South America, sponsored by  NNAPF, set the stage for their full and active inclusion in the HOSW movement.  The Sixth  Gathering is reaching out to more communities in Central & South America, as well as to those in Africa.  Spread the word! Healing Our Spirit Worldwide Covenant Celebrating that our Creator has given Indigenous Peoples, who belong to the land  and the sea, a unique and rich collection of gifts including mother earth, the sky and water,  or families and nations, our culture and wisdom and our own lives; Recognizing that these gifts rest at the heart of our past, our present and our future; Believing that the Spirit is the energy that empowers us to share, replenish, protect  and respect these gifts according to the Creator’s design; Remembering the devastation and confusion that colonization brought, including  alcohol and disease; Grieving for the land taken and the loss of communal life; We the Indigenous Peoples of the world having come together as part of the  Healing Our Spirit Worldwide movement declare with one voice and heart our resolve  to strengthen the Spirit of our Nations and Peoples, to clear from our hearts and minds  the clouds of confusion and doubt. We hold as true and as our guide the teaching of our grandmothers and  grandfathers that; We hold a sacred role to protect, maintain and respect the Creator’s gifts  so that our children and generations of children after them may live a healthy and rich life; Our responsibility to address, enhance and restore our sacred role; as custodians  of these gifts we need to make wise decisions because we are accountable to the  Creator and to generations to come; The health and well-being of our people and nations is built on our ability to maintain  compassionate, functioning relationships within ourselves, with the earth, each other,  our families and communities; Knowledge and wisdom are our partners and we must enrich them both and use them  well if our children are to build a meaningful future. We commit ourselves to work in unity and with resolve to strengthen and  heal the spirit of our Peoples.