I love Kingsolver, but I found this book a bit of a slog at times. It might be because I started "reading" it as an audio book on a short trip, but heard only the first few chapters. A few months later I picked it up at my favourite used book store and tried to pick up where I'd left off in the summer, but I had lost the thread. So, I started over this summer but had trouble really getting into it.

I didn't find the characters or the situations particularly compelling. I should have, as the story deals with some major historical figures and events, as well as some important social issues, from the point of view of someone who is involved but in a somewhat peripheral way. Perhaps therein lies the problem. The story comes to us through the journals of this bystander and he is not someone who expresses his emotions strongly. He is a private, introspective person, and so maybe it is difficult for the reader to develop strong empathy for either him or his associates.

I did really like the way the book ended, although I think Kingsolver should have left the reader to surmise how the lacuna may have featured in Harrison's fate. Instead, she patronizes her reader a little by having Violet, the stenographer who has collected Harrison's journals, come to this realization and explain it. Readers like to feel a little bit clever, even if the author has manipulated their "discoveries," and Kingsolver spoils this.

I'd say this is my least favourite Kingsolver book, but she remains one of my favourite authors, nonetheless.