When Lev Trotsky arrives as a political exile from Soviet Russia, he acts as secretary and cook to him, too, following Trotsky when he splits from the Riveras he is at Trotsky’s side when he is assassinated. He spends his childhood mostly in Mexico, with a brief interlude at a military school in the US, and ends up working in his teens for Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, first as Diego’s plaster mixer, then as a cook and secretary and Frida’s companion. A young boy named Harrison William Shepherd is born in 1916 to an American father, a bean-counter for the government in Washington, D.C., and a Mexican mother, Salomé. (Her own website calls it her “most accomplished novel”). How to capture the enormous world that is this book in a brief (readable) blog post? I have only read three other of her books (liked The Bean Trees and Animal Dreams not so much The Poisonwood Bible all pre-blog, unfortunately) but from what I know, this is by far her best. Or, go to the very bottom for my two-sentence review. Another long review – sorry – but one of the best books I’ve read this year, so consider sticking it out with me.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |