Frida

January 1, 2001
Confessions of a guilt-ridden sister spill off the pages of this tell-all historical fiction based on the life of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, as narrated by Kahlo's younger sister, Cristina. Creakily structuredDthe text purports to be a transcription of Cristi's conversations with her psychiatristDand sometimes transparently didactic, the novel paints a detailed picture of Kahlo and her milieu. Bullied in school for being half Jewish, Frida and Cristina grow up in the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution of 1910 in Coyoacan, in the Central Plateau. Cristi, a very ordinary child, often feels eclipsed by her older sister, whether seeking attention from their emotionally distant father or later, from Frida's famous, philandering husband, muralist Diego Rivera. Despite Cristi's jealousies and Frida's insatiable need for attention, the girls keep in close touch when Frida goes away to school in Mexico City and Cristi is forced to take a job to help pay family bills. As Frida's life expands to include marriage to Rivera and travel in the United States, Cristi's world shrinks: she ends up back at home, caring for her two small children and ailing mother. Although events in Mexican history and the adventures of Frida's famous friends make for some intrigue, narrator Cristi is simply not compelling enough to sustain the reader's interest. Her very identity is defined by Frida, and although she professes to love her sister, the bitterness in her voice is evident as she reminds the reader that she was prettier than Frida and that Rivera loved to paint her in the nude. However, there are two movies in the making about Frida Kahlo's life, starring, respectively, popular Latina actresses Jennifer Lopez and Salma HayekDand they could spark interest in all things Frida. Agent, Scovil, Chichak, Galen.

Starred review from November 15, 2000
This imaginative, fact-based novel from Pushcart Prize winner Mujica (The Deaths of Don Bernardo) uses the life of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo to explore a panoply of themes: competition between siblings, the meaning of marital fidelity, and the role of the arts in social activism. The story is narrated by Cristina Kahlo, Frida's sister and lifelong understudy. Throughout, the tone is confessional, as if Cristina were letting the reader in on a multitude of domestic secrets, from the ways xenophobia and anti-Semitism hurt the half-Jewish Kahlo family to the way illness and disability--their father's epilepsy and Frida's childhood polio, followed by a near-fatal trolley accident when she was 18--skewed household dynamics and personality development. As the saga unfolds, sexual longings take center stage, and Frida's passionate if tumultuous relationship with left-wing muralist Diego Rivera is made painfully real. In addition, the Kahlos' personal tale is set in political context, and people including Leon Trotsky, John D. Rockefeller, Dolores Del Rio, and Edsel Ford make well-integrated appearances. Brilliantly crafted, this book resonates with historical and psychological insight. Highly recommended.--Eleanor J. Bader, Brooklyn, NY

Copyright 2000 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2001
Mexican painter Frida Kahlo has become an icon of female power, creativity, and perseverance. Smart and tempestuous, narcissistic and gutsy, she lived a life of great drama and pain, and translated her struggles with the debilitating injuries she sustained in a horrific bus-trolley accident as a teenager, her miscarriages, her radical politics, and her difficult marriage to muralist Diego Rivera into galvanizing and indelible self-portraits. Her paintings are feminist banners, and the events of her life have become mythologized nearly to the point of a catechism. In her boldly visceral fictionalization, Mujica, a widely published fiction writer and critic, hasn't tried to portray Kahlo from the inside. Instead she filters her through the eyes of her simultaneously adoring and resentful sister, Cristina, an almost entirely invented character. This device works well, except for the unnecessary complication of having the deliciously self-serving narrator share her memories with an unidentified American psychologist. Otherwise, this is a tremendously involving, extravagantly sensuous, and imaginatively detailed and interpretative portrait of a fascinating and influential artist who lived a purposefully theatrical life while suffering profound traumas of the body and soul. See the Read-alikes column on the opposite page for more novels about real-life artists.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2001, American Library Association.)