The Lacuna - Tapa dura

"The most mature and ambitious [novel] she's written...An absorbing portrayal of American life...A rich novel [with] a large, colorful canvas...A tender story about a thoughtful man."--Washington Post

"Rich...impassioned...engrossing...Politics and art dominate the novel, and their overt, unapologetic connection is refreshing."--Chicago Tribune

"Masterful...a reader receives the great gift of entering not one but several worlds...The final pages haunt me still."--San Francisco Chronicle Book Review

"Compelling...Kingsolver's descriptions of life in Mexico City burst with sensory detail--thick sweet breads, vividly painted walls, the lovely white feet of an unattainable love."--The New Yorker

"A work that is often close to magic.... Much research underlies this complex weaving...but the work is lofted by lyric prose."--Denver Post

"Shepherd's story in Kingsolver's accomplished literary hands is so seductive, the prose so elegant, the architecture of the novel so imaginative, it becomes hard to peel away from the book"--Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"[Kingsolver's] playful pastiche brings to vivid life the culture wars of an earlier era..."--Vogue

..".True and riveting...Barbara Kingsolver has invented a wondrous filling here, sweeter and thicker than pan dulce, spicy as the hottest Mexican chiles, paranoid as the American government hunting Communists "--Philadelphia Inquirer

"A sweeping mural of sensory delights and stimulating ideas about art, government, identity and history...Readers will feel the sting of connection between then and now."--Seattle Times

"A sweeping narrative of utopian dreams and political reality...A stirring novel...intimate and pitch-perfect."--San Diego Union-Tribune

Harrison William Shepherd, a highly observant writer, is caught between two worlds--in Mexico, working for communists Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo and Leon Trotsky, and later in America, where he his caught up in the patriotism of World War II--in a gripping story about identity and the power of words by the best-selling author of The Poisonwood Bible. 600,000 first printing.