In the Blue House
by Meaghan Delahunt
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Description
Hounded from country to country by Stalin's agents, Leon Trotsky finally finds refuge in Mexico as the guest of the artist Diego Rivera and his charismatic wife Frida Kahlo. But the years spent in Frida's family home, the Blue House, prove also to be his last. Meaghan Delahunt unravels the passions and betrayals of Trotsky's final years in Mexico, while laying before the reader a panorama of Russian history during the first half of the twentieth century. We hear from Stalin's desolate young show more wife and from Stalin at the end of his turbulent life; Trotsky's father, baffled by the Revolution and his son's fame; and from Trotsky himself, still smarting from his brief love affair with the mesmerising Frida. Their voices mingle with the tales of the lesser known- the Mexican Judas-maker who foretells Trotsky's death; a Bolshevik engineer surviving the chill of the Stalinist regime; and the bodyguard who is unable to prevent Trotsky's assassination. This is a remarkable debut, a work of deep understanding and stunning literary artistry. It is as personal and confiding as a whisper but reverberates with the momentous words and voices of history. show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Reviews
Fascinating look into the life of Frieda Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and Trotsky
Something about Trotsky & Frida Kahlo in Mexico in 1940, but I couldn't make much sense of it by page 50, so I gave up.
Ratings
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Published Reviews
ThingScore 75
There is no doubt that Delahunt is an impressive writer; the book is rich in striking images and meticulous - to the point of being overburdened - in its research. But the novel's essential flaw lies in the extent of its ambition, and partially in the author's proximity to, and evidently mixed feelings about, the subject matter.
added by abclaret
Author Information
4 Works 181 Members
Meaghan Delahunt's In the Casa Azul was a finalist for the U.K.'s Orange Prize and won the Saltire Society First Book Award. She was born in Melbourne, Australia, and lives in Edin, Scotland, where she is at work on her second novel.
Awards and Honors
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- In the Blue House
- Alternate titles
- In the Casa Azul
- People/Characters
- Frida Kahlo; Diego Rivera; Leon Trotsky
- Epigraph
- I am a man: do I last
and the night is enormous.
--Brotherhood
--Octavio Paz - Dedication
- For Francis
- First words
- That house: the cradle and the grave. The colour of it - azul anil - a deep matt blue to keep evil away.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Red flashes in the sky because of it.
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 119
- Popularity
- 268,774
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (3.39)
- Languages
- English, Italian, Spanish
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 10
