I've been a fan of Kingsolver for years and I think she is my favourite living, American author. Her prose, descriptions, attention to detail, characterisation and knowledge is astounding and I'm in awe at how much research she must have done to write this book. It must have been so difficult to create fictional characters who so easily fit into real events. Infact it's hard for me to realise that most of the charaters in this book are not real. The Poisonwood Bible is one of my favourite books but this one surpasses it, I think, partly because it's less preachy.
Initially the style was a bit hard to get into because it is a collection of diary entries, newspaper clippings and magazine articles all lovingly put together by the formidable Violet Brown. It's a collection of the writings of Harrison Shepherd. Harrison's first diary entries are about his childhood in the 20s with his flapper/floozy Mexican Mother who flits from one rich horrible boyfriend to another. Harrison is everything his Mother isn't; quiet, an observer and most of all a writer...he can't be without his little cheap notebooks in which he writes everything.The first half of the book is all set in the 20s and 30s mostly in Coyoacan in Mexico City. This first section is a bit hard going and slow but as soon as Harrison ends up being a cement mixer boy and then a chef for the food loving, mental, city wall muralist, Diego Riviera things start to move along at a better pace! Shepherd moves into his crazy house and becomes friends with Diego's wife, Frida Kahlo. I love how Frida and Diego come across in Harrison's diaries; Idealistic communists mixed with vibrant, colourful and deeply traditional Mexican personalities. They are both demanding and selfish artists who also have a strong belief in a more bohemian yet equal lifestyle for all. Kahlo is absolutely brilliant.
I won't bore you with 20th century history but somehow Lev Trotsky, an exiled leader of the Communist revolution in the USSR ends up in hiding in Mexico living with Frida and Diego in their big Blue House. Lev can't speak Spanish so Harrison ends up translating for them so he becomes a witness to their funny, passionate and interesting conversations.
OK, the history was all new to me and could have been boring but Kingsolver cleverly mixes fact with fiction and creates a fantastic personality in Lev Trotsky. The massive historical details are just pared down to a human level. Trotsky is funny, intelligent and compassionate. He loves Mexican food, has an affair with Frida and adores his chickens. From Harrison's perspective life is full of adventures, colours and interesting people who he loves deeply. he admires Tolstoy immensly and he becomes a Father figure he never had. Then suddenly Tolstoy is assassinated by a pickaxe to the head (obviously some undercover Russian agent pounded it into his head). The house is completely gutted by the police and Harrison runs away to the United States...
The second half of the book is mostly spent in the USA and the tone and colour is suddenly drained and subdued. Life in 30s depression American is in stark contrast to the vibrancy of mad Mexico. the poverty is clearly described. War veterans from the First World War have created The Bonus Army and Shepherd (Well, really Kingsolver!) writes an incredibly emotive diary entry about these families living in camps on Capitol Hill and getting caught up in the tear gas used to dispel them. This scene is clearly stamped on my memory now.
Shepherd still loves cooking and through the depression years his housemates are in awe of how he can cook so well with such meagre funds. When the Second World War starts Shepherd gets 'A Blue Slip'. due to 'his indifference to the female of the species.' Harrison's homosexuality is referred to a bit but isn't a defining part of the novel at all. Infact during the trails later it's amazing that lots of lies are created about him but this one truth is ironically not used against him at all.
Shepherd starts writing books about Mexican History and after the War they become massive best-sellers. He becomes rich and successful but he just wants to be left in peace to write. He moves in with the wonderful, discreet Violet Brown his typist. She is one of my favourite characters and through her we see how crazy life in the USA has become. I love how direct, honest and practical she is and her dedication and love for her friend, Shepherd.
.During the post-war years it becomes a policy that American have to have a fear, the government cultivates an inward society that holds all other systems and ways of living as a threat to the American dream and their hard fought freedoms. First it's the fascists and then it's the Reds. Slowly America turns against Shepherd. The words used by the characters in his novels are used against him personally. His relationship with Riviera , Kahlo and Trotsky turns him into a Red. He is slandered, abused, interrogated and accused of un-American behaviour. The media makes up all kinds of rubbish about him.... his books stop selling and he is worried about being sent to prison. This is the time of the Communist witch hunts, the McCarthy trials and everyone becomes paranoid that there is a Red in their midsts and Shepherd's interrogation near the end of the book is heart breaking.
Even people who were fighting for black rights, people who were pro-public health programmes along with political foes, actors and modern artists were often accused of having pro- communist tendencies and either they left the country or were publicly vilified and dispatched to boring, paper shuffling jobs. Anything which was different or other was deemed un-American.
Through all this gloom the ending is surprisingly wonderful and uplifting and finally everything becomes clear about why Violet has written this book out of love for her great friend Harrison. As soon as I finished I had to start reading again because some of the imagery at the start of the book had become clearer too.
OK, this book sounds like a really worthy, intellectual read and in a way I suppose it is because I've learnt a lot. But it's more than that, the style is beautiful and the lives of the people are so well created you can almost smell the food in Mexico and the poverty in 30s America and I'm really going to miss Lev, Violet and Frida!
This is Kingsolver's masterpiece and I think it's a labour of love for the unrecorded little events which happen in even the most important of historical times. Also she knows that as a writer, what happened to Harrison could happen to her or any author or artist.When you write or paint you open your soul and put your life and integrity in the hands of a politically fed media circus.
I now understand a bit more about the fear Americans have for any kind of universal welfare state being implemented in the US, because for them it has dubious, socialist under tones which are totally un-American.
The parallels with life today are scary for us all. History just keeps on repeating itself. Change the word communist to terrorist and the fear still successfully continues.
