Reading this collection of Frida's correspondence was revelatory! You see, other than my quick, but promising perusal of painter Eugene Delacroix's letters, I have never bothered to pursue letters as a kind of close reading: that has just changed! Here we have this distant, world class painter and a first-rate feminist saint, a personage already misted over by the fog of time and legend, when, suddenly, one can read her mail! What a charmer she was! A sweetheart! A basic, decent, down-to-earth, endearing woman who was a great friend, girl-friend, and wife, judging by her humorous and philosophical letters, filled with profanity, slang, endearments, with snatches of poetry and gossip. And living like this so courageously while enduring a world of physical pain and emotional torment (thank you Diego Rivera)! How I would have liked to have known her! (Disclosure: I have been to her house twice and, when asking for directions within her neighborhood, no one there knew who she was!) By the way, this volume is magnicent to hold:, its paper, binding, marginalia, and notations are a pleasure to peruse! ( )