Product Description

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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #409797 in Books
• Published on: 2006-06-06
• Released on: 2006-06-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 400 pages

From Publishers Weekly
When Cyndi Rae Hrncir, 17, moves with her family to Albuquerque, N.Mex., her Czech heritage makes her an outsider. When her father, and the father of "bad girl" Didi Steinberg, both succumb to cancer, the two form an alliance that strengthens as their mothers descend into grief. Cyndi then meets the charismatic, guitar-playing Tomás Montenegro, an up-and-coming star in the flamenco world, and her life changes. She studies flamenco with Tomás's great aunt, the daunting Doña Carlota Anaya de Montenegro, who raised him. Didi joins them, and the grueling physical and emotional challenges underscore the differences between the two girls. Meanwhile, their demanding teacher reveals bits and pieces of her own past in politically roiled Spain, unlocking secrets of Tomás's heritage. The emerging triangle between Cyndi, Didi and Tomás does not hold a candle to the stunning revelations about Doña Carlota's life and extraordinary history (which would have made a much more compelling novel). But Bird (The Yokota Officers Club) delivers a story brimming with romance and visceral details of flamenco, its music and its history. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Cyndi Rae Hrncr (not a typo) loses her father to cancer and her mother to a religious cult. Fortunately, her friend Didi "Dirty Deeds" Steinberg is there to pull her through and keep her life interesting. Didi is into "groupie-ing" bands to fuel her path to stardom. She brings "Rae" along to handle the details. It is on one of these missions that Rae meets and falls instantly in love with Tomas Montenegro, a wildly handsome young flamenco guitarist. Rae becomes obsessed with flamenco dancing and culture in order to be the woman Tomas^B could fall in love with. Didi becomes enamored of the drama and passion of flamenco as exhibited by their enigmatic teacher, Dona Carlota. The passion of the dance and Carlota's stories fill the center of the novel, revealing much about flamenco, Gypsies, and New Mexican culture. But it is the beginning and end of the book, told through Rae's honest and captivating voice, that move the story and compel the reader. Hers is a voice that will resonate like a fine guitar. Elizabeth Dickie
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
“More than a summer romance . . . The Flamenco Academy is a deft exploration of love, desire and jealousy told against the backdrop of that most complex of dances, flamenco.”
—The Baltimore Sun

“A compelling story brimming with the history and rhythm of flamenco . . . Bird’s tale of romance and betrayal evokes the passion of flamenco itself.”
—bRILLIANT

“A heady brew of a novel, lushly romantic at one turn, wryly and wittily observant at the next.”
—San Jose Mercury News

“Stunning and ambitious, a tale of obsession and, yes, gypsies . . . Bird’s travelogue to the little-known universe of flamenco puro and its cantaores (singers), tocaores (guitarists), and flamencas (dancers) is enthralling.”
—Texas Monthly

“If you want a good, solid summer romp, Sarah Bird’s The Flamenco Academy ought to be way up there on your reading list.”
—The Austin American Statesman

“In the monolithic culture of flamenco, Bird finds a remarkable landscape for transforming the inaccessible whims of an obsessive, lonely teenager into the epic saga of self-acceptance, loyalty and love to which no one is immune.”
—The Austin Chronicle

“Fascinating . . .A tale of friendship and betrayal with powerful glimpses into the legacy of flamenco, its mysteries and power . . . After reading The Flamenco Academy, it may be impossible to ever think of the art of flamenco in the same way.”
—Santa Fe Reporter

Customer Reviews

Great book for a white girl whose heart yearns for flamenco
I loved this book! My husband is in the military and we were stationed in Spain for 3 years where I learned a LITTLE flamenco. I have missed Spain terribly since moving back to the States. I happened upon this book in the book store and I appreciate so much Bird's respect of the gypsy culture in Spain, of flamenco's history and roots and of her homage to Federico García Lorca. What I loved even more was reading this book from the perspective of the protaganist, Cyndi Rae, who is an anglo seeing, learning, experiencing flamenco as an outsider same as myself. Flamenco is full of passion, pain and fearless expression. I appreciate flamenco so much and I am so grateful for this gem of a book. It helped put a bandaid on my soul bleeding in longing for Spain and all things flamenco. If you know anything about flamenco you will love this book. If you know nothing of flamenco you will learn a lot about it through an anglo's eyes.

Mixed feelings
Sarah Bird has been a favorite of mine ever since her first novel, "Alamo House," and up until "Flamenco Academy," I would give her books solid five stars. "Flamenco Academy" is thoroughly-researched, a technically excellent book from a reader's perspective. Her writing style, which first began to wax lyrical in "Mommy Club," is nothing short of perfect, and her basic storyline is solid and engaging. During the course of the book, protagonist Cyndi Rae, a somewhat introverted and ambitionless girl, gradually escapes what proves to be an oppressive and self-defeating friendship with Didi Steinberg, the self-obssessed, attention-seeking celebrity wannabe all of us have bumped into at least once. I loved the interaction between Rae and Didi throughout the book; brava Ms. Bird! However, I question the author's plot device of moving the story along: flamenco - vis-a-vis the cumbersomely long stories told by Rae's ancient dance instructor, a "gypsy on four sides." This question of bloodline, which plagues the book's darkly romantic love interest, Tomas, towers in the plotline, completely obliterating the awesomely natural story flow between Rae and Didi, as described through their dead-end jobs at the "Puppy Taco," during Didi's escapades as a groupie, and particularly during Didi's ultimate betrayal of Rae. If esoteric issues such as bloodline leave you indifferent, you probably will feel, as I did, a little annoyed. If you wonder why this is so important to Rae, the main character, you will also feel as I did - confused.

So with all this said, you have to deeply care about flamenco, down to its most intricate historical details, to appreciate and enjoy this book to its fullest. Because my interest in flamenco is about on par with that of Gregorian Chant, I found myself skiming over the dance instructor's narratives so I could continue to read about Rae and Didi. Had Rae's obssession been something more accessible - the pursuits of a master chef, a literary wonder, a rock singer, or even a garden variety movie star - the use of a secondary plotline might have drawn me in, but ... nope, probably not. Plottus Interruptus, I detest thee in any form. (I can't help but to feel that Ms. Bird broke the cardinal rule of "write what you know, not what you've researched" in order to showboat her knowledge.) For true-blue Bird fans, "Flamenco Academy" is worth the buy; however, newcomers might best be served by Bird's older books, such as "The Boyfriend School" or "The Mommy Club."

Andale, Andale, Andale!!!
I thought I knew what flamenco was: women dancers in gaudy ruffled dresses, spit-curled hair, with clicking castanets, and men in close-fitting jumpsuits stomp-dancing theatrically around each other, an "Andale" thrown in here and there for good measure. After reading "The Flamenco Academy" by Austin writer Sarah Bird, I find I knew nothing at all.

Flamenco is a world unto itself, a cult, certainly a religion of sorts, where the dancers, the guitarists, and the singers are seeking purity and perfection, "flamenco puro."

The novel begins like any other coming-of-age story, two misfit girls finding each other when both their fathers die of cancer. Didi is the wild, plucky tramp, chasing after rock bands, while Rae, the narrator of the novel as well as the nerdy math wizard, follows in Didi's shadows. At one of Didi's groupie parties, Rae meets the enigmatic and fiercely handsome, Tomas Montenegro, flamenco guitarist extraordinaire.

After Tomas has disappeared from her life, Rae becomes obsessed with flamenco. For years she studies the dance, learns the music and the culture, in an effort to become the woman she thinks Tomas will love -- when and if she finds him again. Ultimately, she does.

With the introduction of Dona Carlota, the steely, "gypsy-on-four-sides" dance teacher, the novel takes flight. Dona Carlota, who happens to be Tomas Montenegro's aunt, tells fantastical stories as she teaches her students, of the cave-dwelling gypsies of Granada, of the heavy-handed Generalissimo Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s, of the poet and flamenco aficionado Frederico Garcia Lorca.

Dona Carlotta's stories have a mystical quality and comprise most of the middle, and the best parts, of the novel. It is through her stories that the reader begins to understand the passion of flamenco, and to grasp its seductiveness.

Writers don't much like to have their work compared to other writers, or even to their own earlier works. Sarah Bird's previous novels and the characters in them have often been wry and humorous. "The Flamenco Academy" is a departure. There is very little humor here.

Instead there are splendid scenes of explosive dance, the heels on the shoes "aiming for a place one inch beneath the floor," hammering ancient dust from the wooden planks. And there is the drama of the guitarist's long-nailed, sensuous fingers plucking the music from his instrument, and the "wailing, warbling, sobbing" voice of the singer echoing off the walls.

All this is accomplished with a beguiling ease and artistry that drives the narrative even more than the story of love and hate, betrayal and deception. Sarah Bird has recreated the flamenco world and she pulls her reader into it with a clever hand.