(noticia) Book review | ‘The Flamenco Academy’

Reviewed by Claudia Smith Brinson

'The Flamenco Academy,' by Sarah Bird

Knopf, 400 pages, $25

Cyndi Rae Hrnciris an outsider: She’s shy, pale, of Czech descent. She has one almost-friend in high school. Her mother is so high strung, all conversation at home takes place in whispers. Her father is dying of cancer.

So is the father of Didi “Dirty Deeds” Steinberg, the coolest girl in high school, the Groupie Queen of Albuquerque.

he two form an alliance that grows more intimate when their fathers die. They balance each other: Didi offers adventure to cautious Rae. Rae does schoolwork for wild Didi. And when Rae’s mother deals with grief by joining a cult, Didi’s by nonstop drinking, the two become roommates, then all the family each has.

Sarah Bird, author of “The Yokota Officers Club,” is interested in the emotional mysteries of relationships and quickly tells us this is the story of “A triangle. The staple of opera, melodrama, romance novels, of flamenco.”

(leer +) [vía the state]

tags: flamenco, baile, cante, literatura flamenca