Each month the Booktrust Online Reading Group will pick a book for you to read and discuss online. We're keen to know your thoughts on the books. The Online Reading Group is a chance to read and discuss books with other book lovers. We discuss one book a month, choosing the next month's title when the discussion starts — so there's plenty of time to read up.
Use the comment feature to discuss some of the points below, anything else you found while reading and if you have any suggestions for next month's book.
This month's book: The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver (Faber)
Book notes
Winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction 2010, The Lacuna is the heartbreaking story of a man torn beween the warm heart of Mexico and the cold embrace of 1950s McCarthyite America.
Born in the US and reared in Mexico, Harrison Shepherd is a liability to his social-climbing flapper mother, Salomé. Making himself useful in the household of the famed Mexican artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, and exiled Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky, young Shepherd inadvertently casts his lot with art and revolution.
A violent upheaval sends him north to a nation newly caught up in World War II. In the mountain city of Asheville, North Carolina he remakes himself in America’s hopeful image. But political winds continue to throw him between north and south, in a plot that turns many times on the unspeakable breach – the lacuna – between truth and public presumption. A gripping story of identity, loyalty and the devastating power of accusations to destroy innocent people. The Lacuna is as deep and rich as the New World.
Discussion points
> What is the significance of the book's title? What does it mean within the context of the novel?
> What prompts Harrison to begin his journals? Why does he write? What does he mean by referring to his notebook as 'prisoner's plan for escape'?
> Describe Shepherd, first as a 12-year-old and, later, as a mature adult. What kind of character is he? How does he change over the course of the novel?
> Describe the Riviera/Kahlo household. How does Shepherd see Riviera's influence over Kahlo? Have you seen the movie Frieda? If so, does that film influence your reading of The Lacuana?
> Do you find the second-half of the novel, in the US, evocative of a time and place that no longer exists? If so, is that a good or bad thing? If not, what has remained the same? How does Kingsolver present those years?
> Does this book enlighten you about the era of the Red Scare and the McCarthy hearings? Or do you feel this ground has been well tread by many others?
About the author
Barbara Kingsolver was born in 1955 and grew up in eastern Kentucky. Her books include poetry, non-fiction and award-winning fiction. In 1999 she was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction for The Poisonwood Bible; she went on to win the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2010 with The Lacuna. She lives with her husband and daughter in southern Arizona and in the mountains of southern Appalachia.
Further reading
The Poisonwood Bible, 2001
Animal Dreams, 1990
Another America, 1992
Prodigal Summer, 2000
Small Wonder: Essays, 2002
your comments
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lizkeenaghan
Jul 20th, 2010 at 19:53:50 hrs
I felt this book captured one man's fight to keep himself whole against incoherent forces throughout his life - and that he won