The Lacuna in Retro Chapter Chicks

Jul 28, 2021 Theresa rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: art-as-subject-background-theme, highly-recommended-by-me, historical-fiction, food-and-cooking, immigrant-experience, lgbtq, z-pop-sugar-2021-reading-challenge, z-2021-top-10

I had to pour myself a scotch to recover my equanimity after finishing. I'm still a day later puddling up as I think about writing this review, The Lacuna affected me so deeply. It did so in a really good way! The Lacuna is absolutely on my lifetime best reads/favorite books list.
This is the story of Harrison William Shepherd and his life from about 1929 through 1950, from age 12 to early 30s. Shepherd is a man of words, a writer, with his story told in the form of journal entries, letters, oth I had to pour myself a scotch to recover my equanimity after finishing. I'm still a day later puddling up as I think about writing this review, The Lacuna affected me so deeply. It did so in a really good way! The Lacuna is absolutely on my lifetime best reads/favorite books list.
This is the story of Harrison William Shepherd and his life from about 1929 through 1950, from age 12 to early 30s. Shepherd is a man of words, a writer, with his story told in the form of journal entries, letters, other documents, and the very occasional observations of Violet Brown, his stenographer. Son of a Mexican mother and an American Father, his life is split between Mexico and the US, between separated parents and no other family, leaving him with no clear sense of identity, of roots, of belonging - "I am the permanent foreigner." This book is his journey, which just happens to include Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, Leon Trotsky, and many major historic events ending in the McCarthy era. Yet it's less about his experience of historic events, which are of course told, but of societal and cultural change. It is also the examination of the place in our world, our culture, of art and the artist, the writer and his words, as well as the need of the artist to create, the writer to write. It is an exploration of art and the artist as a lacuna, which is initially described as 'an opening, like a mouth, that swallows things....It goes to the belly of the world." The artist 'swallows' up what he/she observes and experiences, using it to create art whose "purpose ...is to elevate the spirit, or pay a surgeon's bill. Or both, really. It can help a person remember or forget. If your house doesn't have any windows in it, you can hang up a painting and have a view....Art by itself is nothing, until it is carried into the house."

Kingsolver's writing brought these characters and their world to full vibrant life. Shepherd initially appears (and later claims) to be merely an observer, a reporter, disengaged, yet it rapidly becomes abundantly clear he is the opposite. Kingsolver accomplishes this through his tongue and cheek observations as a teen in his journals, his self-deprecating humor as an adult, even from the blunt insertion of third party commentary and documentation like newspaper articles (real and invented). She also accomplishes this through the loyalty of others brought to rich life: Violet Brown, his longtime stenographer, and, one of my personal favorite side characters, Artie Gold, the NY Jewish entertainment lawyer who becomes his legal advisor and friend. I know many Artie Golds; Kingsolver captured him perfectly.

I wept a lot in the last 40 or so pages, for a motley collection of reasons. I'm half Irish and the waterworks start easily and readily at the least little thing, even just my candidate winning an election. However, the tears pulled forth here were deep, which made me realize that I was no longer just reading a great book, but instead was totally immersed in its world, living alongside Shepherd and Violet and Artie. This is a book that touched me deeply.

There was a 9 year gap after Prodigal Summer before The Lacuna was published, and that time shows in this beautiful novel. It deserves every single prize it won and many it didn't.

There's a description of Shepherd the writer at the very end of the novel, written by Violet Brown, that in my opinion applies equally to Barbara Kingsolver. Read the book to find out what I mean. ...more

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Mar 06, 2012 Book Concierge rated it really liked it

Shelves: mexico, literary-fiction, historical-fiction, culture, audio, books-about-books, nature, library, concierge, strong-women

Audio book performed by the author.
4****

Kingsolver tells the story of William Harrison Shepherd, a young man caught in the gaps (the lacunae) between two countries, two parents, two cultures, two lives (public and private). The novel unfolds as a series of diary entries, letters, and newspaper clippings, spanning the period from 1929 to 1954. Never quite at ease with his place in the world, Shepherd is an astute observer, who carefully considers what he witnesses and forms his own opinions. But ...more

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