When Singing is NOT Music to Your Ears

I live in Spain, the home of Flamenco. Unfortunately, this evening I had to put up with the neighbour trying to sing in this style. At first I thought she was either A, drunk; B, had fallen over and hurt herself; C, had a very bad case of constipation; or D, all of the above.

There is a technique called a "quejido" which translates as a plaintive wail. But there is a big difference between expressing the pain of heartbreak or loss and the pain of haemorrhoids. It can be very difficult to hit the right note and generally only a true gitano (gypsy) can pull it off.

Flamenco tends to be a bit of an acquired taste, particularly cante jondo, the authentic, pure form, which is like a double espresso compared to the decaffeinated stuff you often hear on the radio. You really need to be an aficionado to appreciate it. (Note that although aficionado is a Spanish word, for them it means an amateur, or fan, but not necessarily expert.) So a lot of foreigners, (my father being a prime example) seem to be surprised when they don't see the Spanish singing and dancing flamenco 24/7. They don't all like bullfighting, either.

Which brings me to the question: when writing a book set in a foreign country, where is the line between depicting a culture and getting mired in national stereotypes? If a movie is set in Brazil, it always seems to be Carnival time; an establishing shot for England more often than not depicts things that are easy for the audience to identify as English - a couple of double-decker buses driving past Big Ben; and Australia usually has a few kangaroos hopping past the Sydney Harbour Bridge, (I grew up in Oz and did actually have a tourist ask me where all the roos were. Well, they don't normally hang around the city centre, funnily enough.)

In my romcom, Loosely Translated, I wanted to get away from turning it into a tourist guide of Spain and focus more on the people. Even so, the main character, Maria, is relatively quiet and reserved compared to the typical Andalucian. (Yes, Maria is a typical name - my wife, her sister, her mother and grandmother are all called Maria. In fact, about 30% of the female population has Maria as a first name, including some men - Jose Maria is not uncommon!) I wanted to give a feel for the ordinary, real people. Most are more likely to watch the football than the bullfighting and probably don't sing flamenco, either. Not even badly.

Maria, a Spanish translator, meets Mike, the English author of the stupid detective novel that she very loosely translates. Mike is a drinking, swearing womaniser, but can Maria discover the real person beneath the surface? A novel about not judging books, or people, by their covers.

If that sounds like your cup of tea, buy me a couple of beers - that's about how much the book costs, and you'll get that warm, fuzzy feeling of helping out an indie author. Cheers!

Loosely Translated at Amazon.com