| Product Summary | | Format: Hardcover | | ISBN: 9780060852573 | | Publisher: HARPE | | Publish Date: 11/3/2009 | | Buy.com Sku: 211279812 | | Item#: | | Buy.com Sales Rank: 8585 | | Dimensions (in Inches) 9.75H x 6.5L x 1.5T |
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| | | In her first novel in nine years, "New York Times"-bestselling author Kingsolver tells the story of Harrison William Shepherd, an unforgettable protagonist whose search for identity takes readers to the heart of the 20th century''s most tumultuous events.
Annotation:
After several works of non-fiction and poetry, Barbara Kingsolver (THE POISONWOOD BIBLE) returns from a nine-year hiatus to the novel form with THE LACUNA, a tale of cultural and political displacement in the first half of the 20th century. Harrison Shepherd is the son of an American father and a Mexican mother, who grows up in Mexico as a housekeeper in the famous artist household of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. His exposure to the politics of Leon Trotsky turns him into a committed leftist--views that come back to haunt him when he moves back to the United States in the aftermath of World War II and must face the paranoia and witch-hunting of the McCarthy era. Kingsolver has crafted a rich and layered story, full of powerful political sentiment, that vividly evokes the tension and hopes of the Americas.
| Praise| "[B]reathtaking....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; or for its harmonious choir of voices. But the fuller value of Kingsolver's novel lies in its call to conscience and connection." - Liesl Schillinger 11/08/2009 "Barbara Kingsolver's...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....[The] 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..." - Ron Charles 11/05/2009 "A lavishly gifted writer, Kingsolver has not let success breed complacency. This novel, her first in nine years, feels prodigiously researched. Its confident pacing mines roughly a quarter-century in two countries, landing the hero in the midst of events that cast long shadows toward our own time....[Though she] resorts to lengthy expository dialogue....[w]hat saves these pages from pure artificiality is Kingsolver's wonderful ear for the quirks of human repartee. THE LACUNA is richly spiked with period language." - Kai Maristed 11/02/2009 |
| Author Bio| Barbara Kingsolver | | Barbara Kingsolver grew up in rural Kentucky in a family that encouraged reading and nature study, but strongly discouraged TV-watching. She studied biology at DePauw University, then spent a few years working in Europe. Curious about the American Southwest, she came home to settle in Tucson, where she eventually pursued graduate studies in ecology at the University of Arizona. After graduate school she worked as a scientific writer and a freelance journalist and, eventually, became a full-time writer. Her first novel, THE BEAN TREES, was published in 1988 to much critical acclaim, and won awards from the American Library Association, PEN, and the American Booksellers Association, among others. In addition to fiction, Kingsolver has written articles on social and environmental topics. |
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