The Flamenco Academy: A Novel

by Sarah Bird

Book Overview

Lights! Camera! Action! A hilarious chapter book debut from a fabulous new talent! Things to Know About Me by Jules Bloom 1. I am a scrambled-eggs-and-chocolate-milk type person. 2. I have an audition... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0345462386
• ISBN13: 9780345462381
• Release Date: October 2007
• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.0" x 0.8" x 5.2"

Customer Reviews

The words are as zapateado

Can one find in modern literature a character that has mathematics, love, and dance all packaged into one? In this story there is such a character, Cyndi Rae Hrncir, who traces out her worldline in Albuquerque, New Mexico, home of the `Flamenco Academy.' Sometimes this worldline is a random walk, and sometimes it is subjected to the strong perturbations of her "friend" Didi, but it also, and most delightfully, patterns itself to the staccato rhythms of flamenco, a dance that takes full advantage of gravity and acoustics, demanding attention from its audience, and an abundance of perspiration and bunions from its dancers. Flamenco was to Rae at first a practical tool, a means to an end, a methodology by which she could get into the arms and bed of Tomas Montenegro, a handsome young guitarist, who holds Rae under a spell from the first night she sees him. But unwittingly, but totally expected from anyone who engages in the vertical movements of horizontal desire that is dance, Rae falls under the greater spell of flamenco, and this sustains her throughout the extreme tensions she experiences with her "friend" Didi. But flamenco is more than a mental catharsis. It has a philosophy, history, and ethic. Rae's flamenco teachers, musicians, and historians explain to Rae throughout the story that its history is intertwined with the wanderings of Gypsies, and the brutalities of Franco Spain. Tomas defined flamenco as `tragedy in the first person'; Dona Carlota as "give me the truth" (dame la verdad). At any cost the dancer and accompanying guitarist must engage in a symbiosis of `flamenco puro.' And it must be held as axiomatic that flamenco cannot be learned. It must be lived. And indeed Rae did live, and superbly so. In spite of her temporary turmoil, she recovered. Dancers are good at that. They are trained to gracefully recover from a fall. With her life being a combination of mathematics, love, and dance, Rae achieved the Aristotelian eudaemonia; the Csikszentmihalyi flow; the flamenco enterao.

Bird delivers 'la verdad'

Sarah Bird's follow up book to "The Yokota Officers' Club" is beautiful, moving, heartbreaking and ultimately hopeful. Continuing to explore the "motherless children" theme she visited in "Yokota," she crafts a story with settings and characters that are both familiar and exotic. I was delighted to pick up my copy while on vacation -- not to imply that this is in any way a beach book; it's much too dark for that. It did, however, keep me riveted, despite the lure of the beach and the tchotchke shops. We see the story through the eyes of Rae, who shares the stories of her flamenco teacher, Dona Carlota, weaving the violent and secretive history of flamenco through Rae's own tumultuous life. At the risk of writing a spoiler, I'll say that one of my (many) favorite things about the book is the way it ends, with Rae beginning to live her own life, rather than being a supporting character to someone else's story. What are you planning next, Ms. Bird? I'll be waiting!

A wonderful enthralling read!

I was so enthralled by this book! It has everything: great storytelling, fascinating sup-plot, wonderful characters, history brought to life, and such power to suck you right into the story that I couldn't stop reading it! The research that went into writing it makes Sarah Bird a master of getting her details just right yet never becoming pedantic.The depiction of obsession is so recognizable and compelling: for Flamenco and for the personal relationships of the two girls, both with each other and Tomas, the Gypsy guitarist.Sarah Bird is an awesome talent. I am telling all my friends to order it immediately!

terrific contemporary tale

When her family relocated to Albuquerque, New Mexico, seventeen years old Cyndi Rae Hrncir feels like a stranger in a strange land as her Czech backgrounds sticks out. The loner soon suffers another blow when her father dies from cancer. Reputed "bad girl" Didi Steinberg suffers the same misfortune when her dad also dies from cancer. The paternal tragedies lead to the two disparate teens forging a special bond as they have no one to turn; both their moms are busy grieving.. After meeting rising flamenco playing guitarist Tomas Montenegro, Cyndi develops a passion for the music. She and Didi study under Tomas' legendary great aunt and guardian daunting Doña Carlota Anaya de Montenegro. As the two young females learn the demanding flamenco requirements, each makes a play for Tomas while also learning much about the Doca's past in war ravaged Spain. This is a terrific contemporary tale that focuses on two intriguing scenarios. First the obvious romantic triangle between the students; this is well written and holds the audience attention as they wonder if friendships will end and who if either of the girls will gain the boy. However, even more interesting and refreshing is that the novel is the story of Doca; that grips the reader as few subplots can. Fans will appreciate this strong tale that pay homage to the art of flamenco music and dancing. Harriet Klausner

Beating Hearts

To do "The Flamenco Academy" justice one should dance a review, not write it. Not "one" as in me, because I can't dance. Sarah Bird's book deserves a more perfect homage than I can write, much less perform en compás, so to speak. This is a book about obsession, sex, flamenco, gypsies, art, celebrity, broken families, the Spanish Civil War, and contemporary American life with all its brutal selfishness and redemptive possibilities of freedom. Most of all, like all great stories, it is about -- it lives in and is written from -- the human, all too human heart. It's a romance, but it's a postmodern romance. That is, "Flamenco" is about anything but escape. It follows the first commandment of flamenco puro: give me the truth. I ached for young Rae, the Albuquerque teenage girl who falls deeply in love with the tortured musical prodigy, Tomás, after a single magical (and chaste) encounter. Hell, I ached for Tomás, too, and Didi, Rae's narcissistic friend. (Didi deserves a new literary category, neither protagonist nor two-dimensional antagonist, but, maybe, pantagonist.) I was captivated by the cave-dwelling gypsies of the tales within the tale. They are ugly, earthy, carnal, lice-ridden angels who, perversly, remain pariahs and enemies-of-states because of their fierce beauty. Then there is Federico García Lorca, the martyred Spanish poet whose cameo in the book is written with a touch the poet himself would have admired. Bird writes with a thoroughly contemporary sensibility. This is a romance, but it's not retro. Its daring reminds me of G.B. Edwards' "Book of Ebenezer LePage", which is handy, because the late novelist John Fowles described Edwards' book in words that fit Bird's accomplishment very well. Edwards' book risked "things that no trend-conscious novelist today would care to risk his reputation on, just as in some ways it had to stay resolutely old-fashioned and simple-tongued." Edwards' book was "an act of courage," Fowles said, and that's exactly what I think of Bird's "Flamenco Academy". This book makes me want to dance.