The Lacuna, Part I

My back has siezed up, condemning me to a day in bed. No matter, it's a great excuse to plough through Barbara Kingsolver's novel, The Lacuna. It is historical fiction about the artist couple Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera around the time they harboured Leon Trotsky in their home (although I'm only one-third of the way through, so I can't tell where it's going). It is narrated in the form of a life memoir by one of the Riveras' servants. Part of it is narrated in the second-person as a confidential report to Kahlo. Surprisingly, the narrator is gay. Even more intriguing: the object of his desire is a Norse fellow named Van, Trotsky's assistant. Kingsolver's writing is lucid and lively, never pretentious, an engaging mix of humour and tragedy. Back to bed and back to book.

A novel

"A novel! Why do you say this won't liberate anyone? Where does any man go to be free, whether he is poor or rich or even in prison?" ~Trotsky, in The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver