The Lacuna - Mexico and US not blending in each other

Let's start the new year in Mexico City and discuss the book The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver.

Here's a book summary:

In her most accomplished novel, Barbara Kingsolver takes us on an epic journey from the Mexico City of artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo to the America of Pearl Harbor, FDR, and J. Edgar Hoover. The Lacuna is a poignant story of a man pulled between two nations as they invent their modern identities.

 

Born in the United States, reared in a series of provisional households in Mexico, Harrison Shepherd finds precarious shelter but no sense of home. Life is whatever he learns from housekeepers who put him to work in the kitchen, errands he runs in the streets, and one fateful day, by mixing plaster for famed Mexican muralist Diego Rivera.

Meanwhile, to the north, the United States will soon be caught up in the internationalist goodwill of World War II. There in the land of his birth, Shepherd believes he might remake himself in America's hopeful image and claim a voice of his own.

With deeply compelling characters, a vivid sense of place, and a clear grasp of how history and public opinion can shape a life, Barbara Kingsolver has created an unforgettable portrait of the artist—and of art itself. 

We will meet in Portrero Hill neighborhood on Saturday January 21, 2012 at 2pm.