Pursued from country to country by Stalin's GPU agents, Leon Trotsky finds refuge in Mexico City in 1937. There he encounters the fire and splendor of the artist Frida Kahlo who, with her husband Diego Rivera, welcomes Trotsky and his wife Natalia into their home, the Casa Azul. Meaghan Delahunt's breathtaking first novel explores those extraordinary years in Mexico, but also spreads before the reader a panorama of Russian history, revolution, and upheaval throughout the first half of the twentieth century. We hear from Stalin's desolate young wife, and Trotsky's Ukrainian Jewish father, baffled by the dissolution of his own estate and the rise of his son, and from Trotsky himself, still smarting from his brief love affair with the mesmerizing Frida. Their voices mingle with the tales of the lesser known who, in their way, have also created history: the Mexican artist 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. In the Casa Azul insightfully examines politics and art, as well as disillusionment and loss in the service of high ideals. This is a remarkable debut, a work of deep understanding and stunning literary artistry. In her first novel, Delahunt, who in 1997 won the Australian national short-story competition Flamingo/HQ, re-creates the fatal animosity between Stalin and Trotsky. Focusing on Trotsky's Mexican exile, including his time in the Casa Azul (the home of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera), the story shifts between youth and old age and among the inner circle of the friends and enemies who surrounded these onetime comrades in world revolution. Embracing the strongest emotions, these relationships include a brief affair between Kahlo and Trotsky, which puts his love for his wife in stark terms. On the Moscow side, Stalin's last days are marked by his repeated betrayals of those who supported him. While respecting the known history between these men, Delahunt nevertheless writes with lyrical compassion and bold imagination about their secret thoughts and fears. A powerful novel about a time that still shapes our new century, this work belongs in most public libraries. Barbara Conaty, Library of Congress Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. Leon Trotsky was but one of artist Frida Kahlo's many conquests, but the circumstances surrounding their brief liaison are historic given that Trotsky and his long-suffering wife sought sanctuary in Mexico City in 1937 in the futile hope of eluding Stalin's assassins. This is the entry point for Delahunt, whose sophisticated fictional interpretations of true-to-life yet enigmatic figures belie her status as a first-time novelist. Gliding back and forth in time and between Mexico and the Soviet Union, Delahunt creates an ensemble of searing voices, most evoking the relentless brutality of life under Stalin. Trotsky, the novel's nucleus, offers poignant self-portraits, while his father, wife, bodyguard, impervious Frida, and even his killer provide alternate perspectives. Stalin is illuminated in all his monstrosity, most trenchantly by his intelligent, suicidal wife, as Delahunt uses each point of view as a lens through which to study the conflicts between love, art, and politics, the self and the greater world. Delahunt's brilliant approach to a profoundly puzzling and tragic historical interlude coalesces into a towering tale of aberration and devotion reminiscent of Elena Poniatowska's Tinisima (1996). Donna Seaman Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved "Luminous...Delahunt's interwoven narratives read like a sensuous, dangerous dream." -- The Texas Observer "Sensual, poetic, and poignant." -- San Antonio Express-News "A mesmerizing first novel...In the end, this novel resembles nothing less than one of Rivera's famous murals--human activity everywhere, each figure burning for attention." -- Publishers Weekly "Brilliant...a towering tale of aberration and devotion." -- Booklist "Astounding in a mapping-out of the volcanic passions and dark evils of the Revolution's heroes and villains...A complex story laid out with consummate skill and aimed directly at the powerful vortex where emotion and politics converge." -- Kirkus Reviews Meaghan Delahunt lives in Scotland and is at work on her second novel. In the Casa Azul , was a finalist for the UK's Orange Prize, and won the Saltire Society First Book Award. SENORA ROSITA MORENO COYOACAN JULY 1954 That house: the cradle and the grave. The colour of it azul and - a deep matt blue to keep evil away. We say it is a blessing to be born and to die in the same house. Now that she is gone I imagine the birth and remember the death. It rained much on both occasions. Rain on a coffin tells us the person is happy. Rain on a newborn tells of a difficult life. The senorita loved the rain, the tears of the sky. Between her birth and her death, the sk