So good. Mixing historical characters (Kahlo, Rivera, Trotsky) with fictional. This is a great, atmospheric read. ( )

I enjoyed this, having come to it with zero knowledge of Frida Kahlo, Trotsky, or the red scare/blacklist period of the 1940’s and 50’s, and knowing precious little about the history and culture of Mexico. There is an authenticity to the scenes in Isla Pixol, Mexico City, and Yucatan, and the characterizations of Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and Trotsky ring incredibly true. The main character, Harrison Shepherd, has a Mexican mother and an American father, and is raised (if you can call it that) in both countries after the parents split up. The story is told in a series of diaries, letters, and newspaper articles (some made up and some real). Shepherd writes obsessively in his journal and is destined to return to the US and become a best-selling novelist with stories of ancient Mexico. Before that however, he works as cook/secretary in the Rivera/Kahlo household, and is there during the years of Trotsky’s exile and residence with the artists. Unfortunately, these “subversive” associations leave him at the mercy of the “howler monkeys” of the House Un-American Activities Committee once he achieves fame in the US. There are a lot of parallels with the politics of today, to state the obvious. The novel does have a few weaknesses. For instance, it’s hard to buy how famous and acclaimed the reclusive Shepherd becomes after authoring just two books about a country few Americans care that much about, such that he would come to the attention of the famous thought police committee. Also, he is just a bit too passive for me. I kept wanting him to fight back against the lies and innuendo. On the good side, reading this motivated me to learn more about Frida Kahlo and her art. ( )

Holy moly...I just couldn't do it. I didn't like the diary style of writing. I never was able to get into the story (I was bored). I love Barbara Kingsolver, but didn't love this book. Sorry :( ( )

A grand novel that contains two distinct parts. The first is set in Mexico, in the 1930s. The main character, Harrison William Shepherd, a child born in the US, spends his formative years in the household of Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, and their houseguest, Leon Trotsky, who is hiding from Soviet assassins. After Trotsky is assassinated, Harrison returns to the states. The second part of the novel focuses on Harrison's life in in in Asheville, N.C., where he authors historical potboilers and tangles with the House Un-American Activities Committee.
( )

Barbara Kingsolver’s sixth novel came out nine years after her fifth, and tells the story of a young man who grows up in Mexico in the household of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, then eventually moves back to America and becomes an author during the 1940’s and 50’s. Through this character, she explores a range of historical topics, but the main thread running through it is the rise of communism in the world, how Stalin betrayed the Russian revolution and had Lev Trotsky executed (the man who should have been Lenin’s successor), and how the Red Scare in America worked so insidiously against artists and intellectuals who were left-leaning or even had remote associations with socialists.

The book was at its best while it was in Mexico, as it provided insights or spurs to further reading on Mexico’s revolution over 1910-20, and the brutality of the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs, draining the lake surrounding their capital, Tenochtitlan (now Mexico City), and burning alive those who resisted, like Qualpopoca. An extensive part of it deals with Rivera, Kahlo, and Trotsky – their political and philosophical beliefs, their art and writings, and their personal lives – and all of this worked for me.

It also scores points with its description of the American government’s shameful treatment of the Bonus Army in 1932 (including the roles future WWII heroes Patton and MacArthur played), and the rationale behind America’s actions towards Trotsky, that with Hitler on the rise, Britain and America needed Russia on their side, so they couldn’t let Trotsky be right about Stalin being a monster, because they would “need that monster.”

The book is clearly a vehicle to examine history, something I liked about it, but which other readers may be less enamored with. Kingsolver does well when she extracts articles verbatim from The New York Times which are brilliant in speaking truth to the era, but she sometimes rather awkwardly forces dialogue into her characters’ mouths to try to get her points across. I have to also say, after p. 341 (of 670), when the action shifts to North Carolina in the 1940’s, the book was a little less interesting to me. The story line of the young man breaking through as an author, the many reviews Kingsolver imagines as reactions to his work, and his suspicion of being a communist was not strong enough to sustain the amount of material devoted to it.

With that said, she illustrates the supreme hypocrisy of those who were ostensibly against the suppression of freedom who turned around and suppressed free speech, and abused their power in ways that echoed authoritarian countries, things that are still highly relevant today.

There were also bits in this second half of the book that were informative, like the artistic treasures of the National Gallery being transported to the Biltmore House for safekeeping, the 39%(!) of those drafted for the war who failed the physical examination and deemed unfit to serve, and the generally progressive Senator from California, Hiram Johnson, who was an isolationist, playing a key role in prohibiting Japanese immigration, and advocating for Japanese American internment, aided by the frenzied, hyperbolic reporting in William Randolph Hearst’s newspapers. I was also unaware that the original _target for the second atomic bomb as Kokura, and that the plan changed mid-flight to Nagasaki because of the weather, or that Truman had unfortunately quipped “If that’s art, I’m a Hottentot” in 1947 in reaction to a Look Magazine article titled ‘Your Money Bought These Pictures.”

All these little factoids, coupled with the Kingsolver’s clear-eyed view of history, are what I liked best about this book. The story constructed around them was not as strong and lagged in the second half. If you’re interested in the historical topics, or the art of Rivera and Kahlo, this may be a good read for you.

Quotes:
On America, and its blithe way of ignoring its problematic history or the need to make progress in the present; this was brilliant:
“It’s what these guys have decided to call America. They have the audacity to say, ‘There, you sons of bitches, don’t lay a finger on it. That is a finished product.”

On lies and propaganda in the news:
“Lies are infinite in number, and the truth so small and singular.”
And this:
“How will their tongue survive in a modern world, where the talkers rush to trample every pause?”

On memories, and parting:
“Praise all but the vanishing point where we stand now, not quite parted. Already memories fall like blows. But soon they will be treasure, dropped like gold through a miser’s fingers as he makes his accounts: the years at a desk, elbow to your elbow. … Praise each insomniac hour, kept wide awake by your glow. Sleep would only have robbed more coins from this vandal hoarded store.”

Also this:
“The white cuffs soaked like bandages, drops of blood falling on white paper, these images have receded, mostly gone. But then one appears, startling as a stranger standing in the corner of a room where you’d thought yourself alone.”

On the moon’s phases:
“This evening the moon was half, and Leandro said it’s dying away. You can tell because it’s shaped like the letter C, not curved forward like D. He says when the moon is D like Dios, it is growing to fill God’s sky. When dying away it is C, like Cristo on the cross.”

On writing, and readers:
“I should like to write my books only for the dear person who lies awake reading in bed until page last, then lets the open book fall gently on her face, to touch her smile or drink her tears.”

Lastly, the funny lines from a friend:
“What’s steamin’, demon?”
“Plant you now, dig you later.”
“Thanks for the buzz. Cat, you know how to percolate.”
“That’s the story, morning glory.”
“The hell you yell, Asheville has instant coffee now?” ( )