Barbara Kingsolver, acclaimed author of The Poisonwood Bible, returns to fiction after nine years with her much anticipated historical novel, The Lacuna: one man’s journey from the warm heart of Frida Kahlo’s Mexico to the cold embrace of Joseph McCarthy’s America.

In 1930s Mexico, young Harrison Shepherd, born in the US and brought up in a series of households in Mexico, finds work helping famed revolutionary muralist Diego Rivera. Making himself useful in the household of Rivera, wife Frida Kahlo and exiled Bolshevik leader Leo Trotsky, Shepherd is inspired and throws in his lot with art and revolution. Through a series of dramatic events, he finds himself back in the US during World War II. In Carolina, he remakes himself in America’s hopeful image. But as political winds push him between north and south, he becomes a danger to the famous Mexican household that had taken him in, as he is sought out by authorities as a double agent. Kingsolver is a writer of great integrity who puts into practice her social beliefs. She continues to inspire with this exceptional novel.