A Good Read in Costa Rica

I love to read while traveling and was so glad that my friend Wendy had this book in her luggage when I too quickly finished the one I had brought along and was facing another ten days with no book!

Because we were in Central America, this book echoed many of the things we were seeing and experiencing.  I won't write a review because you can read a much better one than I could write here or here, but I will say that as with most historical fiction, I learned a lot about the events of another time.  Barbara Kingsolver spent years researching this book and bring alive a time of revolution and significant change while weaving together the fictional main character, Harrison Shepherd with the lives of Diego River, Frida Kahlo, and Lev Trotsky.  

Perhaps The Lacuna is not Barbara Kingsolver's best novel, but I found a disturbing and facinating parallel between the apolitical Shepherd's associations with the revolutionary figures in Mexico drawing the scrutiny of the House Un-American Activities Committee with the current climate of abridged civil rights since the events of 911.  

Would love to know what you think about this novel if you have read it.  If you have not, I would recommend it.  Much has been written about Frida Kahlo as an artist.  This book, fiction or not, makes me wish I could have been her friend.