These gaps (lacunae) are places in which Harrison experiences a crisis, either in identity or a disruptive occurrence. Even though this approach is intentional and fits with the title, the reader may occasionally feel like too much is left in the gap between what is known and unknown. The downside to this telling is that it is a bit fragmented, consisting of letters, an archivist’s notes, news articles, and court transcripts. This book helps the reader understand the impact of historical events on people of the time. Harrison Shepherd is one of the alleged Communists due to his former employment with Kahlo, Rivera, and Trotsky. The storyline covers the Great Depression, the lives of Mexican artists Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, exiled Marxist Leon Trotsky, election of Harry Truman, the House Un-American Activities Committee, and Senator Joseph McCarthy’s campaign against alleged Communists. These two narrators, the protagonist and archivist, become witnesses to a thirty-year span of US and Mexican history. The archivist gradually reveals herself, and we learn her relationship to Harrison Shepherd and what happened to him. At that point, the structure shifts to a series of diary entries, written by Harrison.

The early chapters are told in third person by an omniscient narrator, but the reader learns, via an archivist’s entry, that these chapters were written by Harrison Shepherd years later, after he had become a notable author. The novel is complex in its narrative structure. When the romance grows stale, Salome takes Harrison to Mexico City to live with another of her lovers. Left mostly to himself, Harrison learns to cook and helps in the kitchen. Salome left Harrison’s American father in Virginia and traveled to Mexico to live a lavish lifestyle with Enrique. Protagonist Harrison Shepherd is thirteen years old lives with his Mexican mother, Salome, and her paramour, Enrique. Ambitious historical fiction that begins on an island off the coast of Mexico in 1929.

The lacuna by barbara kingsolver