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P.S.

Main 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.

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“...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 ”

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

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“[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.”

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“[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

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“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...”

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“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.”

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“A sweeping narrative of utopian dreams and political reality…A stirring novel…intimate and pitch-perfect.”

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

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“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.”

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“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.”

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“Kingsolver deftly combines real history and the life of the fictional protagonist…A sweeping tale.”

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“Masterful…a reader receives the great gift of entering not one but several worlds…The final pages haunt me still.”

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

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“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”

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“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.”

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“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.”

Short description/annotation:

New York Times bestselling author Barbara Kingsolver's The Lacuna is an ambitious and gripping historical novel about Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, Communism, and one man’s epic search for identity in Mexico and the United States.

The author of The Poisonwood Bible; Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and more; Kingsolver tells the complex, gripping tale of Harrison William Shepherd, a writer whose journey from the 1920s to the ’50s allows him to witness the tumultuous lives of artists Rivera and Kahlo in Mexico, the politics of Leon Trotsky, and the bullying tactics of J. Edgar Hoover and McCarthyism in Washington, D.C.

The Lacuna, winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction, is written with Kingsolver’s masterful lyricism as she blends real and fictional characters and events in a poignant story of a man torn between two nations and the impact of history on art and artists.

This Harper Perennial Deluxe Modern Classic features beautiful cover artwork on uncoated stock, French flaps, and deckle-edge pages.