La Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver

There’s an undercurrent of sadness running through Kingsolver’s books. This is a really interesting story about a lonely child brought to Mexico by his dysfunctional divorcee mother and struggling to grow up. He winds up in the household of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo and becomes entangled with their lives, a relationship that becomes dangerous when Trotsky arrives fleeing Stalin’s assassins. After Trotsky’s murder, the young man finally returns to America where he becomes a famous writer but is subsequently caught up in the post WWII anti-Communist purges. Through it all he keeps the diaries that become the basis for this book, which is posthumously published by his dedicated secretary Violet Brown. It’s great fiction - intelligent historical fiction - and beautifully written. There are particular images that remain with me – the flashy colours of Mexico that are a reflection of Kahlo’s paintings, and the image of Trotsky’s wife’s shoes, parked like little black motor cars by the bed. A book for greedy reading! 5 stars perhaps.