Frida by Barbara Mujica. The Overlook Press: 366 pages. $26.95.

Frida Kahlo, the celebrated Mexican artist, frowns at us from shrines everywhere: exhibits, books, kitsch (a Frida fake tattoo!), children’s names, an El Vez song (it’s the corny, ironic “Frida’s Life of Pain,” if you are interested, sung to the tune of “Kentucky Rain”). As it is, we Frida fans see mainly the Frida that Frida wants us to see, but that vision is further watered down by the kitsch-sellers—we get only the Frida that sells. And that Frida, made up of just a few iconic images, is flat and lifeless. The upcoming Jennifer Lopez movie may either seal for good or expand our perception of the enigmatic painter. One has to wonder what Frida, both communist and diva, would make of all this.

Barbara Mujica’s fictionalized account of Frida Kahlo’s life grants her a blessedly imperfect and varied existence: Mujica gives us the childishly self-centered Frida. The Frida who sometimes produces mediocre paintings. The Frida who delights in appalling her upper-class patrons with crude jokes. In short, the novel neither worships her nor her art, though it is written with great love.

“Frida” is told from the point of view of Frida’s sister Cristina, who was in real life both supporter and rival (she had an affair with Frida’s husband, the muralist Diego Rivera). Cristina’s audience is a nameless and voiceless psychiatrist. Essentially put in the psychiatrist’s chair, Mujica’s reader is being asked to both interpret and judge the veracity of Cristina’s story. Cristina continually reminds the reader that what she says may or may not be true—“Sometimes I’m not actually sure what happened between Frida and me. Sometimes I don’t actually know if I did what you say I did.” It’s clear from the beginning that Cristina has something to confess, and Mujica uses the withheld details as a device to keep the novel’s suspense tight, though in the end, the revelation may not seem worthy of such a labyrinthine confession.

Cristina is a good choice as narrator—someone with conflicted feelings for Frida. Cristina sees herself as “the other Frida,” the stable one depicted in the artist’s “twin” paintings. Mujica crowns her the stronger twin, a caretaker, the closest member of Frida’s family: “her sister, her sidekick, her slave.”

In her “Author’s Note,” Mujica states, “my intention in writing ‘Frida’ was to capture the essence of Frida Kahlo’s personality, not to document her life.” Even so, Mujica’s story is convincingly made up from real events; to add spice and focus, Mujica throws in a couple of invented characters, some fictional letters, and one pivotal event.

Cristina doesn’t sound particularly convincing as a woman in psychoanalysis. Still, Cristina’s dramatic, even cinematic voice isn’t bad--it just makes the book sound like a campy 40’s film. Cristina’s language is peppered with wild analogies—at one point she snaps at Frida, “you think you’re the last piece of toilet paper in the outhouse. . . .” And she paints a burlesque picture of daily life at the Kahlo’s: “Mami, so staid, so self-righteous, swatting the air as though she were after an elusive fly, like one of those American cartoon characters that became popular much later: the cat that keeps trying to smack the bird, zip! zip! zap! like this. She lost her balance, great big solid, stolid Mami, and nearly went down on the floor. But the instant she regained her bearings, she raised her hand again, and this time she knocked Frida squarely on the ear.”

It’s as if Mujica pulled an electrical switch that reanimates Hayden Herrera’s definitive 1983 biography. As Frida’s life begins to lurch and speak, Herrera’s collection of photos, and the paintings, too, take on a third dimension. Mujica’s Frida is a brilliant brave foul-mouthed child, simultaneously defiant and winning. Frida is willing to tell all manner of lies about herself for self-aggrandizement, and often is aggressively cruel toward her sister. At the same time, Frida’s daring rebelliousness and brilliance are full of what Herrera calls “her magnetic charm.” And Mujica depicts Frida as a walking piece of art—Cristina’s fantastic accounts of childhood and adolescent incidents of Frida covering herself in paint make Frida a born artist, one with her art since birth.

“Frida” adds one more answer to the question of who Frida Kahlo was. Cristina would add, “anyhow, what’s real? Does any of us know?”

    Wendy L. Smith teaches English at San Diego Mesa College.