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The Flamenco Academy
While at school, Rae befriends the high school bad girl and a young flamenco guitarist. When they reach college they abandon themselves to the disciplines and demands of the university’s flamenco academy.
From the author of the widely praised The Yokota Officers Club, a superbly alive novel about two young American women caught up in the fevered excitement of the flamenco revival sweeping the Southwest.
The place is Albuquerque. Cyndi Rae Hrncir, called Rae, seventeen and shy, is twice spellbound, first by high school bad girl Didi (“Dirty Deeds”) Steinberg, already embarked on a search for stardom, then by a devastatingly handsome young flamenco guitarist, Tomás Montenegro. Soon the girls are in college, where they abandon themselves to the disciplines and demands of the university’s flamenco academy and to the hypnotic storytelling of their teacher, Doña Carlota, Tomás’s great-aunt. While never losing the insistent beat of the dance, Doña Carlota mesmerizes her students with the complexly embroidered story of her childhood growing up among the cave-dwelling Gypsies of Andalusia. She initiates them into the traditions, the rhythms, and the steps of flamenco puro, with its central imperative: “Dame la verdad”—Give me the truth.
Locked in a volatile triangle and driven by obsession—Didi’s with stardom, Rae’s with Tomás, Tomás’s with his mysterious heritage—these three emerge as the brightest stars on the New World flamenco scene, while secrets and desires, longings and betrayals pulse just beneath the glittering surface of their compelling performances.
A sense of passion and danger has always surrounded flamenco. In The Flamenco Academy, Sarah Bird delivers a novel with a sense of history and character that matches the drama of the dance it so brilliantly celebrates.
From the author of the widely praised The Yokota Officers Club, a superbly alive novel about two young American women caught up in the fevered excitement of the flamenco revival sweeping the Southwest.
The place is Albuquerque. Cyndi Rae Hrncir, called Rae, seventeen and shy, is twice spellbound, first by high school bad girl Didi (“Dirty Deeds”) Steinberg, already embarked on a search for stardom, then by a devastatingly handsome young flamenco guitarist, Tomás Montenegro. Soon the girls are in college, where they abandon themselves to the disciplines and demands of the university’s flamenco academy and to the hypnotic storytelling of their teacher, Doña Carlota, Tomás’s great-aunt. While never losing the insistent beat of the dance, Doña Carlota mesmerizes her students with the complexly embroidered story of her childhood growing up among the cave-dwelling Gypsies of Andalusia. She initiates them into the traditions, the rhythms, and the steps of flamenco puro, with its central imperative: “Dame la verdad”—Give me the truth.
Locked in a volatile triangle and driven by obsession—Didi’s with stardom, Rae’s with Tomás, Tomás’s with his mysterious heritage—these three emerge as the brightest stars on the New World flamenco scene, while secrets and desires, longings and betrayals pulse just beneath the glittering surface of their compelling performances.
A sense of passion and danger has always surrounded flamenco. In The Flamenco Academy, Sarah Bird delivers a novel with a sense of history and character that matches the drama of the dance it so brilliantly celebrates.
400 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2006
30 people are currently reading
548 people want to read
About the author
Sarah Bird
24 books600 followersSarah Bird is a bestselling novelist, screenwriter, essayist, and journalist who has lived in Austin, Texas since long before the city became internationally cool. She has published ten novels and two books of essays. Her eleventh novel, LAST DANCE ON THE STARLITE PIER--a gripping tale set in the secret world of the dance marathons of the Great Depression--will be released on April 12th.
Her last novel, DAUGHTER OF A DAUGHTER OF A QUEEN--inspired by the true story of the only woman to serve with the legendary Buffalo Soldiers--was named an All-time Best Books about Texas by the Austin American-Statesman; Best Fiction of 2018, Christian Science Monitor; Favorite Books of 2018, Texas Observer; a One City, One Book choice of seven cities; and a Lit Lovers Book Club Favorites.
Sarah was a finalist for The Dublin International Literary Award; an ALEX award winner; Amazon Literature Best of the Year selection; a two-time winner of the TIL’s Best Novel award; a B&N’s Discover Great Writers selection; a New York Public Libraries Books to Remember; an honoree of theTexas Writers Hall of Fame; an Amazon Literature Best of the Year selection; a Dobie-Paisano Fellowship; and an Austin Libraries Illumine Award for Excellence in Fiction winner. In 2014 she was named Texas Writer of the Year by the Texas Book Festival and presented with a pair of custom-made boots on the floor of the Texas Senate Chamber.
Sarah is a nine-time winner of Austin Best Fiction Writer award. She was recently honored with the University of New Mexico’s 2020 Paul Ré Award for Cultural Advocacy. In 2015 Sarah was one of eight winners selected from 3,800 entries to attend the Meryl Streep Screenwriters’ Lab. Sarah was chosen in 2017 to represent the Austin Public Library as the hologram/greeter installed in the Austin Downtown Library. Sarah was a co-founder of The Writers League of Texas.
She has been an NPR Moth Radio Hour storyteller; a writer for Oprah’s Magazine, NY Times Sunday Magazine and Op Ed columns, Chicago Tribune, Real Simple, Mademoiselle, Glamour, Salon, Daily Beast, Ladies Home Journal, Good Housekeeping, MS, Texas Observer; Alcalde and a columnist for years for Texas Monthly. As a screenwriter, she worked on projects for Warner Bros., Paramount, CBS, National Geographic, Hallmark, ABC, TNT, as well as several independent producers.
She and her husband enjoy open-water swimming and training their corgi puppy not to eat the furniture.
Her last novel, DAUGHTER OF A DAUGHTER OF A QUEEN--inspired by the true story of the only woman to serve with the legendary Buffalo Soldiers--was named an All-time Best Books about Texas by the Austin American-Statesman; Best Fiction of 2018, Christian Science Monitor; Favorite Books of 2018, Texas Observer; a One City, One Book choice of seven cities; and a Lit Lovers Book Club Favorites.
Sarah was a finalist for The Dublin International Literary Award; an ALEX award winner; Amazon Literature Best of the Year selection; a two-time winner of the TIL’s Best Novel award; a B&N’s Discover Great Writers selection; a New York Public Libraries Books to Remember; an honoree of theTexas Writers Hall of Fame; an Amazon Literature Best of the Year selection; a Dobie-Paisano Fellowship; and an Austin Libraries Illumine Award for Excellence in Fiction winner. In 2014 she was named Texas Writer of the Year by the Texas Book Festival and presented with a pair of custom-made boots on the floor of the Texas Senate Chamber.
Sarah is a nine-time winner of Austin Best Fiction Writer award. She was recently honored with the University of New Mexico’s 2020 Paul Ré Award for Cultural Advocacy. In 2015 Sarah was one of eight winners selected from 3,800 entries to attend the Meryl Streep Screenwriters’ Lab. Sarah was chosen in 2017 to represent the Austin Public Library as the hologram/greeter installed in the Austin Downtown Library. Sarah was a co-founder of The Writers League of Texas.
She has been an NPR Moth Radio Hour storyteller; a writer for Oprah’s Magazine, NY Times Sunday Magazine and Op Ed columns, Chicago Tribune, Real Simple, Mademoiselle, Glamour, Salon, Daily Beast, Ladies Home Journal, Good Housekeeping, MS, Texas Observer; Alcalde and a columnist for years for Texas Monthly. As a screenwriter, she worked on projects for Warner Bros., Paramount, CBS, National Geographic, Hallmark, ABC, TNT, as well as several independent producers.
She and her husband enjoy open-water swimming and training their corgi puppy not to eat the furniture.
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December 7, 2009
Early in her career, Sarah Bird wrote a clutch of romance novels as Tory Cates – a pseudonym that might be translated as "conservative delicacies," which almost sums up the damsels-and-rakes genre in a phrase. But genre fiction is too limiting for a writer as irrepressibly clever as Bird, whose novels under her own name have earned her critical praise and a small, enthusiastic following. The best of them is probably "The Yokota Officers Club," a coming-of-age tale about the rebellious daughter of an American military family stationed in Okinawa.
In her latest, "The Flamenco Academy," Bird has given us another coming-of-age story, but her central plot is one that Tory Cates might have dreamed up: A shy virgin meets a dark, handsome, mysterious man who awakens in her the possibilities of passion, but when he disappears from her life as suddenly as he entered it, she becomes obsessed with finding and winning him. Her quest will take her into the heart of the exotic culture from which he emerged.
There are passages of the ripest romance in "The Flamenco Academy," but they blend into Bird's funny, touching portrait of two misfit girls, Cyndi Rae Hrncir and Didi Steinberg. They meet as high school seniors in an Albuquerque hospital, where their terminally ill fathers are being treated. Didi is flamboyant, interested only in "bands, astrology, and weirdo diets." Rae is a nerdy math whiz. But they strike up a friendship born of their alienation from other high school students and are soon breezing about the city in Didi's red Mustang. When their fathers die, they're pretty much on their own: Didi's mother is a lush and Rae's joins a religious cult. The girls move in together and get jobs at the Pup y Taco, a hot dog and Mexican food take-out joint.
Didi has a hunger for stardom that she feeds by playing groupie to touring bands. One night, Rae follows her to a post-concert party at a motel, and meets a flamenco guitarist who has hitched a ride with the band. Rae is captivated by his music – and by him, especially after he helps her escape when the party is raided by the police. The two of them spend the evening wandering the city, but when he discovers she's a virgin he abruptly backs off, flags down a ride and disappears from her life.
Through an Internet search, Rae identifies the mystery man as Tomás Montenegro, a rising star in the world of flamenco. When she learns from a newspaper article that the University of New Mexico has "the only university-level flamenco program in the world," she enrolls in it. Moreover, the teacher of the beginning class turns out to be Doña Carlota Anaya de Montenegro – not only a superstar of flamenco, but the one who adopted and raised Tomás.
Didi follows Rae to the first flamenco class and gets caught up in the dance. Soon the two are star pupils, but with very different styles. Doña Carlota dubs Didi "La Tempesta" because of her fiery but undisciplined style. Rae has a better understanding of compás, the complex rhythms of flamenco, because she can translate them into mathematical patterns. Doña Carlota calls her "La Metrónoma," for her technically perfect, metronomic mastery of compás. She tells Rae and Didi, "'The head and the heart. Together you are the perfect dancer. Apart?' She gave an Old World shrug that dismissed both our chances."
What chance could these two misfits have at excelling in flamenco, an art whose greatest practitioners are Gitano por cuatro costaos – "Gypsy on all four sides"? Didi (née Rachel) Steinberg, "the little girl who wanted AC/DC to play at her bat mitzvah," was born to a Filipina mother and a Jewish father. And Rae has to acknowledge that she's "the exact reverse of all things flamenco, … my broad, pale Czech face … evidence that, not terribly far back in my genetic lineup, there were generations of dozy, strawberry blond milkmaids, all pale as steam."
But Didi reinvents herself. She becomes a star, the diva Ofelia, by studying "Doña Carlota in the same omnivorous way she watched Madonna and Cher, the same way she read Sylvia Plath and listened to Joni Mitchell and studied Frida Kahlo's painting." To succeed, Rae will have to follow the advice given her by Doña Carlota and move out from under Didi/Ofelia's shadow: "You will never have enough light because you will never have enough courage to grow past her and reach the sun." The complementarity of Didi and Rae turns to rivalry, not only as dancers but eventually for Tomás himself.
"The Flamenco Academy" is not only the saga of Rae and Didi. It also gives us Doña Carlota's tales of Gypsy childhood in 1930s Spain, shadowed by the civil war, as well as the reasons for Tomás' own enigmatic behavior. This makes for a heady brew of a novel, lushly romantic at one turn, wryly and wittily observant at the next. If it seems to shrivel into anticlimax at the ending, that's because so much high passion has gone before. And when it comes to characterization, especially compared to Rae and Didi, Tomás never quite turns from Tormented Artist into convincing human being. At times, he's little more than a hero-hunk sent over from central casting at Harlequin Books.
But good conflict makes good fiction, and that's what gives "The Flamenco Academy" such irresistible energy and narrative drive. And what really makes the novel more than just an exceptional summer read is Bird's wonderful ability to create a milieu, from the Albuquerque prowled by teenage girls to the Spanish caves inhabited by Gypsies. Best of all, she gives us the complex lore and intricacies of flamenco, which Didi – always one to get the last word -- describes as "obsessive-compulsive disorder set to a great beat."
In her latest, "The Flamenco Academy," Bird has given us another coming-of-age story, but her central plot is one that Tory Cates might have dreamed up: A shy virgin meets a dark, handsome, mysterious man who awakens in her the possibilities of passion, but when he disappears from her life as suddenly as he entered it, she becomes obsessed with finding and winning him. Her quest will take her into the heart of the exotic culture from which he emerged.
There are passages of the ripest romance in "The Flamenco Academy," but they blend into Bird's funny, touching portrait of two misfit girls, Cyndi Rae Hrncir and Didi Steinberg. They meet as high school seniors in an Albuquerque hospital, where their terminally ill fathers are being treated. Didi is flamboyant, interested only in "bands, astrology, and weirdo diets." Rae is a nerdy math whiz. But they strike up a friendship born of their alienation from other high school students and are soon breezing about the city in Didi's red Mustang. When their fathers die, they're pretty much on their own: Didi's mother is a lush and Rae's joins a religious cult. The girls move in together and get jobs at the Pup y Taco, a hot dog and Mexican food take-out joint.
Didi has a hunger for stardom that she feeds by playing groupie to touring bands. One night, Rae follows her to a post-concert party at a motel, and meets a flamenco guitarist who has hitched a ride with the band. Rae is captivated by his music – and by him, especially after he helps her escape when the party is raided by the police. The two of them spend the evening wandering the city, but when he discovers she's a virgin he abruptly backs off, flags down a ride and disappears from her life.
Through an Internet search, Rae identifies the mystery man as Tomás Montenegro, a rising star in the world of flamenco. When she learns from a newspaper article that the University of New Mexico has "the only university-level flamenco program in the world," she enrolls in it. Moreover, the teacher of the beginning class turns out to be Doña Carlota Anaya de Montenegro – not only a superstar of flamenco, but the one who adopted and raised Tomás.
Didi follows Rae to the first flamenco class and gets caught up in the dance. Soon the two are star pupils, but with very different styles. Doña Carlota dubs Didi "La Tempesta" because of her fiery but undisciplined style. Rae has a better understanding of compás, the complex rhythms of flamenco, because she can translate them into mathematical patterns. Doña Carlota calls her "La Metrónoma," for her technically perfect, metronomic mastery of compás. She tells Rae and Didi, "'The head and the heart. Together you are the perfect dancer. Apart?' She gave an Old World shrug that dismissed both our chances."
What chance could these two misfits have at excelling in flamenco, an art whose greatest practitioners are Gitano por cuatro costaos – "Gypsy on all four sides"? Didi (née Rachel) Steinberg, "the little girl who wanted AC/DC to play at her bat mitzvah," was born to a Filipina mother and a Jewish father. And Rae has to acknowledge that she's "the exact reverse of all things flamenco, … my broad, pale Czech face … evidence that, not terribly far back in my genetic lineup, there were generations of dozy, strawberry blond milkmaids, all pale as steam."
But Didi reinvents herself. She becomes a star, the diva Ofelia, by studying "Doña Carlota in the same omnivorous way she watched Madonna and Cher, the same way she read Sylvia Plath and listened to Joni Mitchell and studied Frida Kahlo's painting." To succeed, Rae will have to follow the advice given her by Doña Carlota and move out from under Didi/Ofelia's shadow: "You will never have enough light because you will never have enough courage to grow past her and reach the sun." The complementarity of Didi and Rae turns to rivalry, not only as dancers but eventually for Tomás himself.
"The Flamenco Academy" is not only the saga of Rae and Didi. It also gives us Doña Carlota's tales of Gypsy childhood in 1930s Spain, shadowed by the civil war, as well as the reasons for Tomás' own enigmatic behavior. This makes for a heady brew of a novel, lushly romantic at one turn, wryly and wittily observant at the next. If it seems to shrivel into anticlimax at the ending, that's because so much high passion has gone before. And when it comes to characterization, especially compared to Rae and Didi, Tomás never quite turns from Tormented Artist into convincing human being. At times, he's little more than a hero-hunk sent over from central casting at Harlequin Books.
But good conflict makes good fiction, and that's what gives "The Flamenco Academy" such irresistible energy and narrative drive. And what really makes the novel more than just an exceptional summer read is Bird's wonderful ability to create a milieu, from the Albuquerque prowled by teenage girls to the Spanish caves inhabited by Gypsies. Best of all, she gives us the complex lore and intricacies of flamenco, which Didi – always one to get the last word -- describes as "obsessive-compulsive disorder set to a great beat."
December 23, 2014
What is flamenco? Though there can be joy in the art form, its history is a grim one, a past of misery, hunger, resistance and defiance. According to historian Felix Grande, it arose out of persecution, exploitation, humiliation, wholesale genocide and expulsion. “It is a storm of exasperation and grief.” Onto this stage comes Cindi Rae Hrncir, a pale-skinned Czech girl descended from milkmaids and looking it. Along for the ride is the flamboyant, exotic, devil-may-care Ofelia a.k.a. Didi “Deeds” Steinberg, née Rachel Steinberg, Cindi Rae’s best friend and worst enemy. Told with a fervor that leaps off the page and sears the heart, it is a novel of passion, love, betrayal, mistaken identities, changeling history, obsession and erotomania. Tangled up with all this is the wild adoration of flamenco, a love that withers and blights all it touches and yet snares its victims helplessly within its web. Ms. Bird has crafted an epic tale, one that extends back centuries, one that has its characters and readers arguing, fighting and loving each other while trying to solve the burning mystery of what flamenco is and to whom it truly belongs.
July 26, 2010
Frenemy. It’s a conundrum endemic to socializing the American teen girl: at one time, your best friend – the girl who knows *all* your secrets, crushes, and weaknesses – will also at one time be your worst rival. It’s a new category of conflict onto its own: next to “Man versus God” and “Nature versus Man”, “Woman versus Frenemy” should be given its own rung on the ladder in the drama nomenclature.
Cindi Rae in “The Flamenco Academy” signed on with a doozy of a frenemy, Didi “Dirty Deeds” Steinberg, a “fame at all costs and no holds barred” kind of chameleon who barters blow jobs for backstage passes. Author Sarah Bird, who understands the wallowing teen girl better than most authors, paired up the shy, smart Cindi with this whirling dervish of a counterpoint to tell two stories: the enticing, spicy history of Flamenco and the rite of emotional passage that many women endure through their frenemies.
For the story of Flamenco, we’re told it demands of its devotee only one thing: Give me the truth. The irony is that most “true” Flamenco dancers claim a pure bloodline of Gypsy heritage (“Gypsy on all four sides.”), but even Gypsies are unsure of their ancestry. Do they descend from the pharaohs of Egypt? Or were they Jews fleeing persecution from India? The truth is a shadowy entity, its edges rubbed soft by exaggeration and lies told over generations to perpetuate a myth.
Cindi and Didi’s story begins as two girls in Albuquerque whose common ground is based on their respective fathers’ terminal cancers, but it truly takes off as the girls escape in their own ways the grief of losing their fathers. Didi is hellbent on being the next Cher, Madonna, or other single-named celebrity. Cindi’s job is to enable Didi – Cindi does the homework, Cindi does the job, Cindi keeps things glued together despite teetering on the edge of falling apart herself. Didi takes risks, pushes the limits, and shows no fear. Didi pushes, and Cindi keeps her reined in, barely.
One night Didi drags Cindi out to one of her “groupie” events, and during a police raid, Cindi has her moment: She meets a Flamenco Mystery Man who completely captivates her with his exotic looks and passionate guitar playing. This encounter begins her obsessive quest to learn all things Flamenco so that when Mystery Man reappears, she will be able to in turn captivate him. For once, Cindi is leading the charge, and Didi tags along on Cindi’s need to learn all-things Flamenco, dipping her toes in the passion and virile excitement of the dance to better inform her own rise to stardom.
As expected, Cindi is the technically proficient dancer, but it's Didi who "transcends" the rules to bend Flamenco to her own needs, using it to fuel her performances in other genres.
And then, the Mystery Man reappears. Obviously betrayal occurs in some measure (hence the frenemy issues) -- what keeps you reading is finding out how each character learns from her mistakes, including with friendships, men, and trusting her instincts. "The Flamenco Academy" is just as much as the school of life and love as it is of dance.
Cindi Rae in “The Flamenco Academy” signed on with a doozy of a frenemy, Didi “Dirty Deeds” Steinberg, a “fame at all costs and no holds barred” kind of chameleon who barters blow jobs for backstage passes. Author Sarah Bird, who understands the wallowing teen girl better than most authors, paired up the shy, smart Cindi with this whirling dervish of a counterpoint to tell two stories: the enticing, spicy history of Flamenco and the rite of emotional passage that many women endure through their frenemies.
For the story of Flamenco, we’re told it demands of its devotee only one thing: Give me the truth. The irony is that most “true” Flamenco dancers claim a pure bloodline of Gypsy heritage (“Gypsy on all four sides.”), but even Gypsies are unsure of their ancestry. Do they descend from the pharaohs of Egypt? Or were they Jews fleeing persecution from India? The truth is a shadowy entity, its edges rubbed soft by exaggeration and lies told over generations to perpetuate a myth.
Cindi and Didi’s story begins as two girls in Albuquerque whose common ground is based on their respective fathers’ terminal cancers, but it truly takes off as the girls escape in their own ways the grief of losing their fathers. Didi is hellbent on being the next Cher, Madonna, or other single-named celebrity. Cindi’s job is to enable Didi – Cindi does the homework, Cindi does the job, Cindi keeps things glued together despite teetering on the edge of falling apart herself. Didi takes risks, pushes the limits, and shows no fear. Didi pushes, and Cindi keeps her reined in, barely.
One night Didi drags Cindi out to one of her “groupie” events, and during a police raid, Cindi has her moment: She meets a Flamenco Mystery Man who completely captivates her with his exotic looks and passionate guitar playing. This encounter begins her obsessive quest to learn all things Flamenco so that when Mystery Man reappears, she will be able to in turn captivate him. For once, Cindi is leading the charge, and Didi tags along on Cindi’s need to learn all-things Flamenco, dipping her toes in the passion and virile excitement of the dance to better inform her own rise to stardom.
As expected, Cindi is the technically proficient dancer, but it's Didi who "transcends" the rules to bend Flamenco to her own needs, using it to fuel her performances in other genres.
And then, the Mystery Man reappears. Obviously betrayal occurs in some measure (hence the frenemy issues) -- what keeps you reading is finding out how each character learns from her mistakes, including with friendships, men, and trusting her instincts. "The Flamenco Academy" is just as much as the school of life and love as it is of dance.
April 5, 2013
I cried buckets of tears while reading this book... & for someone who has been taking flamenco classes for about two years now, I would have to agree with Didi that "flamenco is obsessive-compulsive disorder set to a great beat" :)
--------------
this part (when Rae was dancing Siguiriyas) just gripped me.
excerpts from the book
pp. 266-269
In choosing to dance por siguiriyas, I had chosen flamenco’s essential challenge: Dame la verdad. Give me the truth, say something true. The one true thing that I had to say at that instant was good-bye. The time that had started one night when the moon vanished was about to end and my fate now was to bid it farewell. My every movement was heavy with that inevitability in a way that made me understand at last what it was to dance con peso, with weight. Every compas, every falseta, every note I’d danced while trying to create a musical bridge to Tomas crushed down on me.
…
I did a twelve-count llamada, my loaded feet pounding the earth, pouring out the rhythms I would never need again. I held nothing back. I threw out every golpe-tacon-punta combination I’d learned. I tossed them away in double, triple time. When I was done, I had nothing to lose. All I had was the solitary promise flamenco ever makes, the promise of eternity if you can create one moment ravishing enough.
…
An odd bubble of exhilaration rose within me like the moment when my father had taken his hand away and I’d ridden a bike for the first time. Tomas played that as well, the fear, a clutch of panic, the certainty that I was going to die the second my father took his hand away. Then soaring. I danced the wobbling, tipsy giddiness of life and the soaring that is only possible because we’re all precisely one inch of rubber away from falling forever.
My body danced the realization before it hit my brain: This is what flamenco is, knowing you’re alone, you’re going to die, and dancing anyway.
…
It saddened me to realize that I was leaving flamenco just when I finally understood it. I strode forward, decisively calling for the escobilla. If I’d thought about any of this in advance, I’d never have considered introducing an escobilla with its machine-gun footwork into the deepest, most jondo, of all the forms. But I hadn’t thought, hadn’t planned. I was stepping into each new second and letting whatever instant I found myself in dictate how it was to be expressed. This second demanded an escobilla.
…
I moved aside and let my feet follow the rhythm. Doña Carlota had always told us to aim for a spot one quarter inch below the floor. I aimed for hell and woke up every sleeping demon at its dark center. They swarmed up into my heels and I pounded out my fury and rage at Didi’s betrayal. Maybe it wasn’t justified. Maybe she’s genuinely been trying to help me. Maybe she’d had my back. I didn’t care. I was pissed off and I danced that in my farewell dance.
I grimaced, not caring what my face did as long as my feet could do what they had to. As I hammered out my message of anger and wounded pride, I understood the arrogance in flamenco. It rose up in me, seeming to pass through every century of exile and ostracism endured by the outcast people who’d created it. I stood directly in front of Tomas and held my swaying skirt up so he could see my beautiful legs, my astonishing footwork. I wanted him to get a good look at everything he was passing up. The fool.
In slow motion, I saw a bead of sweat roll down the side of Tomas’s face, tracing the beautiful, dark curves of his hairline until he leaned forward and it trembled for a moment at the edge of his eyebrow before dropping onto his guitar. There was only one thing I wanted any longer: for Tomas to keep playing. I knew then why Vicente Romero had died onstage dancing one last escobilla. I knew why cantaores had drowned in their own blood singing one last letra.
These deaths no longer seemed tragic to me. I understood every one. I felt I was on the verge of piercing a veil, learning the unlearnable, knowing the unknowable, when Tomas began to stare at me. Not at the dancer he was trying to follow, at me. His gaze drew me back into the present. I stared back and found what I had to express contained within that second: desire.
In some distant corner of my mind, I was ashamed of the desire that I was revealing more nakedly than if I’d stripped off my clothes. My mother’s face, pinched, silent, stoic, floated into my consciousness. I stamped my shame down until it turned to rose petals beneath my heels, filling the studio with their fragrance.
I finished with a thunderous closing that Tomas had to labor to keep pace with. When it was over, we stared at each other, panting. It wasn't that I knew then we would be true lovers; we already were.
How does a small tree kill a big tree?
You take the sun away from her.
...
--------------
this part (when Rae was dancing Siguiriyas) just gripped me.
excerpts from the book
pp. 266-269
In choosing to dance por siguiriyas, I had chosen flamenco’s essential challenge: Dame la verdad. Give me the truth, say something true. The one true thing that I had to say at that instant was good-bye. The time that had started one night when the moon vanished was about to end and my fate now was to bid it farewell. My every movement was heavy with that inevitability in a way that made me understand at last what it was to dance con peso, with weight. Every compas, every falseta, every note I’d danced while trying to create a musical bridge to Tomas crushed down on me.
…
I did a twelve-count llamada, my loaded feet pounding the earth, pouring out the rhythms I would never need again. I held nothing back. I threw out every golpe-tacon-punta combination I’d learned. I tossed them away in double, triple time. When I was done, I had nothing to lose. All I had was the solitary promise flamenco ever makes, the promise of eternity if you can create one moment ravishing enough.
…
An odd bubble of exhilaration rose within me like the moment when my father had taken his hand away and I’d ridden a bike for the first time. Tomas played that as well, the fear, a clutch of panic, the certainty that I was going to die the second my father took his hand away. Then soaring. I danced the wobbling, tipsy giddiness of life and the soaring that is only possible because we’re all precisely one inch of rubber away from falling forever.
My body danced the realization before it hit my brain: This is what flamenco is, knowing you’re alone, you’re going to die, and dancing anyway.
…
It saddened me to realize that I was leaving flamenco just when I finally understood it. I strode forward, decisively calling for the escobilla. If I’d thought about any of this in advance, I’d never have considered introducing an escobilla with its machine-gun footwork into the deepest, most jondo, of all the forms. But I hadn’t thought, hadn’t planned. I was stepping into each new second and letting whatever instant I found myself in dictate how it was to be expressed. This second demanded an escobilla.
…
I moved aside and let my feet follow the rhythm. Doña Carlota had always told us to aim for a spot one quarter inch below the floor. I aimed for hell and woke up every sleeping demon at its dark center. They swarmed up into my heels and I pounded out my fury and rage at Didi’s betrayal. Maybe it wasn’t justified. Maybe she’s genuinely been trying to help me. Maybe she’d had my back. I didn’t care. I was pissed off and I danced that in my farewell dance.
I grimaced, not caring what my face did as long as my feet could do what they had to. As I hammered out my message of anger and wounded pride, I understood the arrogance in flamenco. It rose up in me, seeming to pass through every century of exile and ostracism endured by the outcast people who’d created it. I stood directly in front of Tomas and held my swaying skirt up so he could see my beautiful legs, my astonishing footwork. I wanted him to get a good look at everything he was passing up. The fool.
In slow motion, I saw a bead of sweat roll down the side of Tomas’s face, tracing the beautiful, dark curves of his hairline until he leaned forward and it trembled for a moment at the edge of his eyebrow before dropping onto his guitar. There was only one thing I wanted any longer: for Tomas to keep playing. I knew then why Vicente Romero had died onstage dancing one last escobilla. I knew why cantaores had drowned in their own blood singing one last letra.
These deaths no longer seemed tragic to me. I understood every one. I felt I was on the verge of piercing a veil, learning the unlearnable, knowing the unknowable, when Tomas began to stare at me. Not at the dancer he was trying to follow, at me. His gaze drew me back into the present. I stared back and found what I had to express contained within that second: desire.
In some distant corner of my mind, I was ashamed of the desire that I was revealing more nakedly than if I’d stripped off my clothes. My mother’s face, pinched, silent, stoic, floated into my consciousness. I stamped my shame down until it turned to rose petals beneath my heels, filling the studio with their fragrance.
I finished with a thunderous closing that Tomas had to labor to keep pace with. When it was over, we stared at each other, panting. It wasn't that I knew then we would be true lovers; we already were.
How does a small tree kill a big tree?
You take the sun away from her.
...
July 1, 2012
This was really good. At parts it was almost torturous to read, because I could anticipate what was going to happen and started bleeding for the protagonist before it did.
I loved the atmosphere of this book... it was so rich in detail about Flamenco and Gypsy culture that it's hard to believe the author wasn't born into it. And I loved the complex relationship between truth and fiction. The characters are always both lying and telling the truth about themselves... the same way Didi is praised for being honest in the emotions of her dancing while simultaneously being dishonest in everything else. The way Rae is honest about representing herself (La Metronoma) but is hardly ever honest about what she feels or who she is outside of Didi's shadow. It's interesting how this play between truth and fiction extends from the author herself... she says this novel is both the most autobiographical and the most fictional she's ever written.
Warning though... if you're overanxious or paranoid, read with care... this novel has a way of amplifying those feelings while you're holding your breath waiting for the next betrayal.
I loved the atmosphere of this book... it was so rich in detail about Flamenco and Gypsy culture that it's hard to believe the author wasn't born into it. And I loved the complex relationship between truth and fiction. The characters are always both lying and telling the truth about themselves... the same way Didi is praised for being honest in the emotions of her dancing while simultaneously being dishonest in everything else. The way Rae is honest about representing herself (La Metronoma) but is hardly ever honest about what she feels or who she is outside of Didi's shadow. It's interesting how this play between truth and fiction extends from the author herself... she says this novel is both the most autobiographical and the most fictional she's ever written.
Warning though... if you're overanxious or paranoid, read with care... this novel has a way of amplifying those feelings while you're holding your breath waiting for the next betrayal.
May 27, 2014
Full disclosure, I was destined to love this book (and thankfully I did). I lived in Albuquerque, NM from age 18-24 and it was as if this book was written about some girls in my extended circle of classmates at the University of New Mexico. I was stunned by the accuracy with which Bird writes about Albuquerque, and I swear I knew a girl who almost exactly resembled Didi (one of the main characters) in her fanaticism and interaction with her "friends". Having knowledge of what its like to live in Albuquerque as a young adult gave so much more credibility to the story for me. I could hardly put it down, it was like reliving some of the most formative years of my life.
During my time in Albuquerque I became entranced with the world of Flamenco-- it features heavily on the UNM campus and throughout Albuquerque and Santa Fe. I loved reading more about the dancers, the culture, and the history, and truly appreciated how Bird wove these pieces in to the story of two contemporary young ladies.
While this isn't a stunning literary masterpiece, I thought it was very honest and real. This is due largely to the fact that it mirrors some of my own experiences, but I can still recommend The Flamenco Academy to others because it is very authentic. I can't wait to read it again!
During my time in Albuquerque I became entranced with the world of Flamenco-- it features heavily on the UNM campus and throughout Albuquerque and Santa Fe. I loved reading more about the dancers, the culture, and the history, and truly appreciated how Bird wove these pieces in to the story of two contemporary young ladies.
While this isn't a stunning literary masterpiece, I thought it was very honest and real. This is due largely to the fact that it mirrors some of my own experiences, but I can still recommend The Flamenco Academy to others because it is very authentic. I can't wait to read it again!
February 1, 2011
"He led me down a street where conquistadors ruled coffee shops and whiskey grew in a garden of green bottles. A secret park appeared in the middle of a sleeping neighborhood. He played falsetas so beautiful that the leaves on the trees turned into hearts and rained down on me. And, on a giant's swing, we sailed so high that the stars blurred into streaks of silver next to our heads."
September 30, 2013
I really wanted to like this book. REALLY. But the one star I'm giving it is because it's got some amazing writing in it--great description, use of subtext, fantastic dialogue. It's clear the author is a seasoned writer. But that's about all it's got going for it, from my perspective.
The story is pathetic and drawn-out, and the characters are not even a little bit likeable. And while it's true that you don't have to necessarily like a protagonist to like a book, in my experience, even unlikable protagonists have got some sort of charisma, a redeeming quality or SOMETHING that makes the reader want to stick with them for the whole book. Here, I had to FORCE myself to finish reading. The narrator is self-pitying, pathetic and blames her own stupid choices and utter lack of personality on her so-called friend, instead of taking responsibility for her own actions. She's so full of vitriol for Didi, you don't even know if she's just painting her as a vapid ho out of spite, or because Didi was indeed a vapid ho.
The love interest is little more than an idealized godling out in the stratosphere and he doesn't have to DO anything to earn the anyone's affection or admiration or anything. So he plays fantastic flamenco guitar. He's a super star. So what? If the author was trying to juxtapose Didi's groupie-ing early on with Rae's obsession with Tomas, ok, I guess it works on that level, but it's still not enough to make me think better of this book.
But the biggest issue I had with the book was the portrayal of the flamenco art form. I'm sorry but, taking a class at a festival one year and interviewing a lot of teachers and guitarists is just plain not enough to undertake a novel that's supposed to be about flamenco. It's enough to kindle the obsession with the art form sure, but it's certainly not enough to understand it, much less to do it justice in written form.
The way the flamenco culture is portrayed in this novel fluctuates from pretty good to just incredibly inaccurate and borderline insulting to those of us who have actually spent a chunk of our lives studying the art form. There are huge typos or plain misnomers in some of the terminology and in the use of Spanish words. And seriously... For two non-dancers to become teaching/performing material within four years? For an Anglo girl who's never even heard flamenco music before to get the compas right away? That's a bit too big a leap and I just don't buy it. If you're not born into the culture, if you haven't been listening the rhythms since you were little, it takes YEARS of training just to get the basics. I know. I've been dancing for a dozen years and all you learn is that the more you know, the more you realize you need to learn. Trained dancers may pick up some things a little more quickly than non-dancers, but teaching/performing within less than half a decade? Uhm. Yeah. Doubtful.
So maybe my strong disappointment with this book is because I expected more. Maybe my dislike is because I've taken its flaws a little too personally, flamenco having been a huge part of my life for a long time. But still. The eBook version was cheap, so I bought it. And I find myself kinda wishing I had saved my $4 for two large Chai lattes instead.
The story is pathetic and drawn-out, and the characters are not even a little bit likeable. And while it's true that you don't have to necessarily like a protagonist to like a book, in my experience, even unlikable protagonists have got some sort of charisma, a redeeming quality or SOMETHING that makes the reader want to stick with them for the whole book. Here, I had to FORCE myself to finish reading. The narrator is self-pitying, pathetic and blames her own stupid choices and utter lack of personality on her so-called friend, instead of taking responsibility for her own actions. She's so full of vitriol for Didi, you don't even know if she's just painting her as a vapid ho out of spite, or because Didi was indeed a vapid ho.
The love interest is little more than an idealized godling out in the stratosphere and he doesn't have to DO anything to earn the anyone's affection or admiration or anything. So he plays fantastic flamenco guitar. He's a super star. So what? If the author was trying to juxtapose Didi's groupie-ing early on with Rae's obsession with Tomas, ok, I guess it works on that level, but it's still not enough to make me think better of this book.
But the biggest issue I had with the book was the portrayal of the flamenco art form. I'm sorry but, taking a class at a festival one year and interviewing a lot of teachers and guitarists is just plain not enough to undertake a novel that's supposed to be about flamenco. It's enough to kindle the obsession with the art form sure, but it's certainly not enough to understand it, much less to do it justice in written form.
The way the flamenco culture is portrayed in this novel fluctuates from pretty good to just incredibly inaccurate and borderline insulting to those of us who have actually spent a chunk of our lives studying the art form. There are huge typos or plain misnomers in some of the terminology and in the use of Spanish words. And seriously... For two non-dancers to become teaching/performing material within four years? For an Anglo girl who's never even heard flamenco music before to get the compas right away? That's a bit too big a leap and I just don't buy it. If you're not born into the culture, if you haven't been listening the rhythms since you were little, it takes YEARS of training just to get the basics. I know. I've been dancing for a dozen years and all you learn is that the more you know, the more you realize you need to learn. Trained dancers may pick up some things a little more quickly than non-dancers, but teaching/performing within less than half a decade? Uhm. Yeah. Doubtful.
So maybe my strong disappointment with this book is because I expected more. Maybe my dislike is because I've taken its flaws a little too personally, flamenco having been a huge part of my life for a long time. But still. The eBook version was cheap, so I bought it. And I find myself kinda wishing I had saved my $4 for two large Chai lattes instead.
November 16, 2014
Two young women are caught up in the revival of the Flamenco dance in this funny and sad tale set in Albuquerque. Using the backdrop of the author's experiences at Highland High School (where I knew the author, she being in my graduating class) and the University of New Mexico.
The central imperative of the Flamenco dance is purportedly "give me the truth." And this skillfully written novel gives us the bitter truth of youthful life and love. Dangerous passion drives this powerful story of yearning, loss, and redemption woven around the heat of the Flamenco dance!
With many local references to Albuquerque and the UNM campus, this book was a special treat for me, having lived in the Albuquerque area for almost 50 years. Central Avenue, Rodey Theater, Lobo Theater, Kimo Theater, Nob Hill, Aztec Motel, Journal Pavilion, and Nine Mile Hill. And don't forget he "Pueblo Heights High School", whose mascot is a giant fighting hornet. Yes, Sarah and I were Albuquerque students known as the mighty Highland High Hornets!
The book even has a little ode to Route 66, known as Central Avenue as the Mother Road runs through Albuquerque, right by UNM and only two blocks from HHS:
"We started singing about getting our kicks on Route 66. We loved our stretch of Route 66, stretching out toward all the infinite possibilities our lives held. Though we pretended to believe that Central Avenue embodied everything that was most tacky about our hometown, we loved to drive it at the exact moment right after the sunset finished its warm-up act when the Sandias were fading from pink to granite and the neon started to vibrate against a darkening desert sky."
Now that is some beautiful writing--and very nostalgic for me!
The central imperative of the Flamenco dance is purportedly "give me the truth." And this skillfully written novel gives us the bitter truth of youthful life and love. Dangerous passion drives this powerful story of yearning, loss, and redemption woven around the heat of the Flamenco dance!
With many local references to Albuquerque and the UNM campus, this book was a special treat for me, having lived in the Albuquerque area for almost 50 years. Central Avenue, Rodey Theater, Lobo Theater, Kimo Theater, Nob Hill, Aztec Motel, Journal Pavilion, and Nine Mile Hill. And don't forget he "Pueblo Heights High School", whose mascot is a giant fighting hornet. Yes, Sarah and I were Albuquerque students known as the mighty Highland High Hornets!
The book even has a little ode to Route 66, known as Central Avenue as the Mother Road runs through Albuquerque, right by UNM and only two blocks from HHS:
"We started singing about getting our kicks on Route 66. We loved our stretch of Route 66, stretching out toward all the infinite possibilities our lives held. Though we pretended to believe that Central Avenue embodied everything that was most tacky about our hometown, we loved to drive it at the exact moment right after the sunset finished its warm-up act when the Sandias were fading from pink to granite and the neon started to vibrate against a darkening desert sky."
Now that is some beautiful writing--and very nostalgic for me!
July 16, 2012
Deeply sensual, The Flamenco Academy is a forceful and unique narrative about the struggle to come into oneself and to be en compás with one's life. Cyndi's battle to enter the world of flamenco is a beautiful echo of the battle she endures in order to enter a world beyond her crippling dependance on Didi and Tomás; to find her Yo Soy.
Brutally honest, Sarah Bird takes her own characters' advice to dame la verdad as she bravely depicts life as it truly is. Her ability to express Cyndi's mental illness without sacrificing the validity of her thoughts and emotions is a true testament to the skill of Bird's writing. Strongly emotional yet unsentimental, Bird infuses her characters with a painful vitality which drives the plot and pierces even the most distant of readers.
Powerful, emotional, and brimming with irrepressible passion, I give The Flamenco Academy my highest recommendation and to the author I give my highest commendation and thanks.
Brutally honest, Sarah Bird takes her own characters' advice to dame la verdad as she bravely depicts life as it truly is. Her ability to express Cyndi's mental illness without sacrificing the validity of her thoughts and emotions is a true testament to the skill of Bird's writing. Strongly emotional yet unsentimental, Bird infuses her characters with a painful vitality which drives the plot and pierces even the most distant of readers.
Powerful, emotional, and brimming with irrepressible passion, I give The Flamenco Academy my highest recommendation and to the author I give my highest commendation and thanks.
April 21, 2010
My husband picked this up thinking it might be interesting since he's taking flamenco guitar lessons. At first I was dubious, but I ended up absolutely loving it. I loved the relationship between Didi and Cyndi Rae - the bad girl and the good girl. I empathized with Cyndi as she pined for Tomás. And I was fascinated by the history of the gypsies as told by Doña Carlota.
Sarah Bird is a talented author and I'm definitely going to read her earlier works.
Sarah Bird is a talented author and I'm definitely going to read her earlier works.
October 20, 2010
things i like about this book:
i like stories that appear to be about one love affair, but are really about another (like the Piano.)
i love writers who can make me "hear" the music or "see" the artwork they are describing. this made me "feel" the dancing.
i really appreciate a book that educates while it entertains, that leads me to research some new areas of interest.
if you know (or are) an erotomaniac, this will resonate.
November 30, 2010
I had a real love/hate relationship with this book. I was tired of the relationship of Rae with Didi. It was not healthy. And all this obsession. How could someone meet a man for five hours and obsess over him for several years??? This is just crazy.
I loved the story of Dona Carlotta. The scenes at the academy were great and caused the four star rating. Otherwise it would have been a three for me.
I loved the story of Dona Carlotta. The scenes at the academy were great and caused the four star rating. Otherwise it would have been a three for me.
May 20, 2019
After meeting each other in hospitals when their fathers are terminally ill, Shy homeschooled Cyndi Rae and rebel Didi Steinberg could not be more different. However they form a strong bond. From teens to young women, their lives take a turn when they both become interested in Flamenco Dancing.
May 20, 2012
I've read most of Sarah Bird's books and she is a master at creating characters I don't care about, yet find riveting. Her characters here are so real I often forgot I was reading fiction.
My mind's eye saw her scenes clearly and the primary actions were singular and intense.
I could not stop until the big secret was told and the characters reacted to it. I could not let go of these characters until their years of betrayal and secrets and lies and corrosive yearnings had some resolution. She held me even though I wanted the book to be over; it felt too long and the characters seemed very stuck for long periods. Her mastery with it all held me though. I was being compelled to hang with all the messy emotions just as her characters were!
My only experiences of flamenco outside of film/television were years ago when a family of flamenco dancers from Spain came to my city each summer. I'd look forward to their performances each summer and sometimes go back for more if I could afford it. How I wish I'd known then more about the world of flamenco that Bird opens to the reader in this story! Learning about flamenco and the NM connection with it was almost as interesting and powerful as the characters and story.
She mentions in the copy of the book I read the impetus for writing this story. It was a strong and awful betrayal at a young age.
Oh, her humor was present here too and an antidote for the mucky emotions.
Thanks, Sarah, for a great read!
My mind's eye saw her scenes clearly and the primary actions were singular and intense.
I could not stop until the big secret was told and the characters reacted to it. I could not let go of these characters until their years of betrayal and secrets and lies and corrosive yearnings had some resolution. She held me even though I wanted the book to be over; it felt too long and the characters seemed very stuck for long periods. Her mastery with it all held me though. I was being compelled to hang with all the messy emotions just as her characters were!
My only experiences of flamenco outside of film/television were years ago when a family of flamenco dancers from Spain came to my city each summer. I'd look forward to their performances each summer and sometimes go back for more if I could afford it. How I wish I'd known then more about the world of flamenco that Bird opens to the reader in this story! Learning about flamenco and the NM connection with it was almost as interesting and powerful as the characters and story.
She mentions in the copy of the book I read the impetus for writing this story. It was a strong and awful betrayal at a young age.
Oh, her humor was present here too and an antidote for the mucky emotions.
Thanks, Sarah, for a great read!
August 11, 2008
It is August, and I am declaring the Flamenco Academy as a favorite novel for 2008.
A strong weaving of the culture of flameno, past and present, with a coming of age tale, or more aptly - a coming to one's own.
I enjoyed the entire story so much that I slowed down near the end, thinking it could not possibly have a satisfying ending, but Bird did not disappoint, it stayed solid to the end.
The only thing I did not like about the book was the reader's group questions following the story. Even though I gave these pages only a cursory glance, it was like evaluating a piece of poetry too quickly. All of these questions remind me of a Billy Collin's poem:
Introduction To Poetry
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.
But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.
Billy Collins
A strong weaving of the culture of flameno, past and present, with a coming of age tale, or more aptly - a coming to one's own.
I enjoyed the entire story so much that I slowed down near the end, thinking it could not possibly have a satisfying ending, but Bird did not disappoint, it stayed solid to the end.
The only thing I did not like about the book was the reader's group questions following the story. Even though I gave these pages only a cursory glance, it was like evaluating a piece of poetry too quickly. All of these questions remind me of a Billy Collin's poem:
Introduction To Poetry
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.
But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.
Billy Collins
March 22, 2012
This is the third novel I've read by Sarah Bird and I am blown away by how different each of her books are. She creates vivid characters that it is easy to attach to, but each one takes place in a different world, the characters are not only unique to their own book but to her writing as a whole. In this heartbreaking tale of overwhelming love and betrayal, two unlikely best friends grow and blossom together, each learning from the other. The man-stealing is introduced in teh first chapter and as you get to know the characters you can see it's going to happen but, still, I found myself hoping upon hopes that there was a misunderstanding at that vivacious Didi wouldn't really take away Rae's mystery man.
December 22, 2009
An Anglo high school girl spends one night with a devastatingly handsome young flamenco guitarist, Tomas, and decides she must make herself worthy of him by immersing herself in his world. Fortunately, she lives in Albuquerque, NM, where there is the country's only flamenco academy. She and her best friend compete throughout her college years for Tomas. What is amazing about this novel is the author's knowledge, gained after much research, of "flamenco puro", and its origins in the caves outside Granada, Spain (where Ricardo and I spent some time).
April 12, 2014
Anyone not already familiar with Sarah Bird would do well to start with The Flamenco Academy. While the cover of the book is beautiful and gives an inkling of the quality of the prose it contains, it doesn't convey the depth of story or the inherent hipness that is the trademark of the author. From classical flamenco to psychedelic "skankettes" in anime outfits, Ms. Bird delivers a non-stop stream of unexpected treats. Reading this book is like attending a great party. Can't wait for her next one!
February 4, 2014
Picked this up off the shelf, after my books on hold were taking a long time. It was a quick read, only took me 5 days. The story was quite interesting about the inner workings of Flamenco dancing. And of course, a love triangle ensues. Sarah Bird brings the beat of Flamenco alive through her descriptions and prose. I haven't read any of her other books, but I would definitely try them out after loving this book.
September 13, 2009
I picked this book up at the Ashland Shakespeare Festival this summer as it was featured with books related to the production of Don Quixote. It was my favorite summer read -- I learned a lot about flamenco and New Mexico and the talents of author Sarah Bird. It's a coming of age novel, but imbedded in the plot line are wonderfully intimate insights into Gypsy culture and the world of dance.
May 17, 2013
This was such a great book! Made me fall in love with Flamenco. I could relate to all of the relationships in the book and how if you let them, they can mold and shape you in to what they want or need to become. I was especially intrigued by the history and details of Flamenco. Thank you Sarah Bird!
April 11, 2007
While I have always been fascinated by the Gypsy culture, I've also had bad experiences with Gypsies. This book helped me to understand why. Not to mention, I could completely relate to the main characters obsession with dance!
June 3, 2011
The passion and danger attached to flamenco flows through this compelling new novel--a story of two young American women caught up in the fevered excitement of the flamenco revival sweeping the Southwest.
September 18, 2012
This book wasn't hard to read, or incredibly memorable, or amazingly deep, but the writing is lovely without ever drawing attention to itself, the characterization of the two best friends and their relationship is fabulous, and the plot moves along well. Plus, yes, I learned a lot about flamenco.
February 3, 2011
Loved learning about gypsy culture. It was a great story, with a sad but courageous ending.
October 2, 2011
I enjoyed this book a lot when I read it. It stayed with me over the years.
February 15, 2012
A Book Club suggestion...Would haven't pick it up otherwise!
March 2, 2013
Sarah Bird's style is intense and internal. It's a novel, but it reads like a memoir, so intimately personal is the reader's relationship with the narrator.
November 12, 2014
fun one!
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