Frida, by Barbara Mujica.
New York: The Overlook Press, 2001.
$15.95 (softbound) - 365 pages.

Her bodice has been ripped - not neatly cut, but ripped - from shoulder to waist, revealing - guess what! A luscious round breast? No.

What do you think this is, a penny romance?

- Frida, page 273

Dear reader, let’s immediately establish a singular fact regarding Frida. This is a very bad novel. Quite honestly, I feel an ethical need to expand on that. Frida is an unmitigated disaster. Reading it is sometimes akin to wading upstream in a river of molasses. To carry the metaphor a little further, I turned each page, foolishly hoping that the dim, bleak landscape on either side of the Black Strap river would suddenly reveal something of interest: a brightly-colored bird, a flower, a sunbeam piercing the dull, stultifying jungle of colorless narrative. No such luck. I trudged on, until finally, on page 365, I encountered the blessed relief of a concluding sentence and a final, merciful period. Selah.

Why did I persist? Essentially, I felt that a topic as provocative as the life of the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo would finally produce sufficient inspiration  even for an author as unpromising as Barbara Mujica. During the past decade, a half-dozen Kahlo biographies have been published, not to mention an infinite number of expensive “art books” that managed to shock, puzzle and delight readers. When Kahlo’s diary was published (she illustrated it with hundreds of surreal, fascinating drawings), I purchased it and spent hours staring at strange faces, floating genitalia, flowers and mythical animals. Judging from the popularity of the art reproductions, Kahlo’s admirers felt that a rash of novels and movies based on this fascinating woman were imminent. Well, here, “hot off the press,” is Frida, a dismal attempt to depict a life that was inspired, theatrical, sordid and tragic. Mujica’s unfortunate book comes close to being a kind of literary desecration.

Allow me to give you a brief summary of Frida Kahlo’s life. Perhaps the details may prompt readers to learn more about her.

Born in 1907 in Coyoacan, Mexico, the daughter of a German-Jewish photographer and a mestiza (Indian) mother, Frida’s childhood was spent in turmoil and poverty. Afflicted with polio at the age of 6, she spent almost two years as an invalid. Afterwards, she consistently deducted two years from her age because she had spent that period “not living.”

Subjected to taunting because of a misshapen leg and her Jewish blood, Frida became a violent, rebellious teenager noted for a fiery temper, a foul mouth and “immodest behavior.” At the age of 17, Frida survived a bizarre wreck which left her mangled and subject to painful surgeries for the rest of her life. Her spine was shattered in three places, one foot crushed and her pelvis broken. Frida rallied, abandoned her hopes of becoming a doctor, and inspired by the works of Diago Rivera, became an artist. After marrying Rivera, she became an ardent communist and accompanied her famous husband to San Francisco, Detroit and New York where Rivera had been commissioned to do murals. Angered by her husband’s infidelity, Frida retaliated by a series of affairs (male and female) with noted artists, writers, photographers and celebrities. Despite her numerous afflictions, her contemporaries invariably found her appearance exotic and attractive. Certainly, she had memorable features: dark brown eyes, a slight mustache and a single eyebrow that ran across her forehead and resembled a raven in flight! Much of her art is deeply personal  a fact that is thought to be largely due to her preoccupation with illness. (She had an easel constructed over her bed so that she could paint lying down). Many of the paintings deal with surgeries, self-portraits and imaginative depictions of her psychological and physical pain.

Frida’s explosive temperament prompted numerous conflicts with her contemporaries. According to one popular story, she asked Henry Ford if he was Jewish! She insulted numerous wealthy American patrons, but readily accepted “commissioned” paintings for them. Throughout her career, she remained unrelenting in her criticism of “Yankee Imperialists,” capitalists, and foreign investors who victimized Mexico. In short, Frida Kahlu was a self-centered, arrogant, egotistical, beautiful, talented and alluring woman.

Would you believe that Mujica manages to make the life of this woman a dull and lifeless sojourn filled with pettiness and self-pity? Actually, this is an amazing accomplishment  the ability to convert gold into lead requires a perverse kind of talent, I guess.

Frida consists of a single, awesome monologue  a first-person narrative delivered by Frida’s whining, self-centered sister, Christina (“I was considered the pretty one!”) The setting is an American psychiatrist’s couch where this embittered sibling matters on and on about her love-hate relationship with her selfish, cruel (and talented) sister. Much of her confessional diatribe is filled with promises to finally reveal dark, earth-shaking truths. The two most significant ones  her affair with Frida’s husband, Diago, and her role in Frida’s “medically-assisted” death  hardly live up to all the fanfare that Christina gives them.

Since Rivera’s sexual philanderings were legendary, and since he slept with literally hundreds of college girls, assistants, painters, actresses and patrons, Christina’s brief romp with the exceedingly obese, ugly Diago (he was nick-named “the Frog”) hardly seems deserving of the significance that Christina gives it; however, Christina’s “betrayal” did strain relationships between the sisters.

As for Kahlo’s death, even if Christina did administer a fatal dose of drugs at Frida’s request, the “fearful deed” seems irrelevant. At the time of her death, the 47-year-old (minus two) invalid had recently undergone a leg amputation, was suffering from a profound addiction to alcohol and a wide variety of pain-killers, and existed in a kind of semi-conscious delirium in which she continually expressed a wish to die. According to members of the family, without Christina’s alleged intervention, death was probably only hours away.

But the fatal flaws of this novel are not in the author’s depiction of Christina’s character. Most distressing is the fact that Mujia has so little to say about Frida Kahlo’s art! Both Christina and the author seem to be largely concerned with Frida’s sexual history. Consequently, the whole novel has a kind of tawdry exposé quality with none of the titillation. Granted, Frida Kahlo, despite her disabilities, had a remarkable (and excessive) sex life; but that is not why she is memorable. More importantly, she was a remarkable, enigmatic artist who drew from sources embedded in her culture, her creative genius and her suffering. A novel that depicts her life should have something to say about her motivations. Why did she paint? What do all of those tendrils and ribbons growing from her self-portraits mean? Why was she obsessed with water and monkeys?

Finally, this novel suffers from endless repetition. Christina tells you (and her psychiatrist) everything several times. Then, she recants. Then, she compromises. Then, she says she loved her sister. No, she hated her. Well, actually, sometimes she hated her. Frida was egotistical and selfish. Well, actually, she suffered so much, it made her that way. She hated me.... Well, no she didn’t. She depended on me. (Reading episodes like that made me want to fall on the floor, bite my foot and giggle. Enough!)

Whatever this novel has to tell us about Frida, it wasn’t worth the aggregation of reading this whining, boring woman’s harangues.

I’m hoping for a paradox in this review. Maybe readers will be prompted to find out more about Frida Kahlo because of this review. I would like to suggest The Diary of Frida Kahlo, edited by Harry Abrams with an introduction by Carlos Fuentes. Also, Frida Kahlo: A Modern Master, by Terri Hardin; and the recent novel, The Years With Laura Diaz, by Carlos Fuentes. The movies will be forthcoming.

(Gary Carden is a writer, storyteller and lecturer whose book, Mason Jars in the Flood, was recently named Book of the Year by the Appalachian Writers Association. He can be reached at gcarden498@aol.com.)