The Lacuna, by Barbara Kingsolver

I requested this book from the library ages ago, but since it was a best-seller, I was over 200 people down on the list. So it was lucky that I saw it on the fast reads shelf, but it was right before Christmas and I was too busy to get more than 130 pages in before I had to take it back. Another stroke of luck- I went to a different branch a few days later and found not one but two copies on the fast reads shelf. This time I managed to finish it.

I really liked Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible, and while this is also a story about a very different time and place in the world, and is just as well-researched and well-told, I didn't enjoy it quite as much. It did pique my interest in Frida Kahlo, who is a main character, along with Diego Rivera and Leon Trotsky. I was also horrified to read how the Cold War and anti-communism affected so many people in the States. We learned about McCarthyism in high school, but I thought it was more about censorship and blacklisting people in Hollywood, not putting so many regular people out of work.

This was one of the better books I've read in quite a while.