Returning to A - Softcover

Ross, Dorien

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0872863077 ISBN 13: 9780872863071

Publisher: City Lights Publishers, 2001

Synopsis

With one suitcase and a map drawn on a bar napkin as her only guide, sixteen-year old Loren travels to Moron del la Frontera in Andalusia to learn to play flamenco guitar from the Gypsies. Here she joins an extended family of flamenco artists and foreign aficionados whose adventures over a twenty-year period are interwoven with Loren's own odyssey. Her life with the Gypsies is haunted by the mysterious circumstances of her brother Aaron's death. Although they shared the same New York Jewish upbringing, he went to California during the expansive optimism of the sixties, while she went back in time to explore a rich music and culture. Their relationship is a dark love story that casts disquieting shadows over their years apart.

As Loren struggles to master an instrument traditionally off-limits to women, she finds her own path, inspired by the earthy wisdom of her Gypsy companions.

Dorien Ross lives in New York City. She studied flamenco guitar with Andalusian Gypsies. Her work has appeared in Best American Essays and in Tikkun.

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

At 16, Loren, the American narrator of this patchy debut novel is learning to play flamenco guitar:"On my guitar case I had written a large sign 'I am not a folk singer.'" She writes a letter to the author of a book about gypsies, who sends back a napkin from a bar in the Spanish pueblo of Moron with the message "'Ven, si tu quieres." And so she goes. The writing about Moron and Loren's life there (she will be drawn back over and over for many years) is beautiful, but it often has a condescending edge. For example, an anecdote about how the flamenco king of Moron did not own a guitar until the village held a benefit to buy him one is sweet, but the narrator seems blind to the economic reality surrounding her, believing that these people live on art. She is immediately accepted into the flamenco fold (although she knows little Spanish) and insists that "In Moron a bonding can occur which is immediate and serious." Less convincing are the reminiscences of her dead brother Aaron, who used to barricade himself in his room to avoid going to school and eventually moved to California, where he overdosed. Ross is better off when she sticks to the concrete details of the flamenco life, as when Loren discusses the pros and cons of attaching the long guitar-playing nails with Crazy Glue?it's strong but tends to cause the real nail underneath to rot, in case you were wondering.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: City Lights Publishers
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0872863077
• ISBN 13: 9780872863071
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 168