The Empanada Brotherhood

A truly great writer can make you truly care about whatever they please, however pedestrian; and so I have come to care, deeply, about a group of impoverished, overgrown adolescent Argentines hanging around a greasy empanada stand on a Greenwich Village street corner in the 1960's. Although the novel contains the standard disclaimer about its fictional nature, I can't but believe that this is an autobigraphical work. The narrator -- the lone gringo in the crowd -- is a struggling young author, new to the city, who has yet to publish. Nichols' crisp, evocative language and penetrating eye turns this unlikely subject matter into an emotionally engaging meditation on all The Big Questions: the natures of life, death, love, and friendship. Although there are scarcely less than two dozen characters, each one is brought into brilliant focus within these two hundred pages. Their rich and tumultuous emotional lives contrast starkly with the bleakness of their physical environment. Both male and female characters leap off the page; the author has a rare understanding of human nature. The multitude of short chapters are like photographs in an album, or video clips in a movie; they each stand on their own as glimpses into the human soul, but are woven together into something greater that touches the reader's mind and heart.

The Empanada Brotherhood is a different coming of age novel that takes place a few years before the Age of Aquarius or the Summer of Love as well as before the arrival of The Beatles, which would change the face of the popular American culture. The story takes place in Greenwich Village amongst a vibrant artistic and bohemian community that still resonates the influence of the Beat Generation and the Lost Generation. This is the Latin American community where fried empanadas are the mainstay on the corner of the street and the youth bathe themselves in an immense amount of culture while grasping to achieve the American Dream. With a resume of 18 books under his belt, John Nichols writes a refreshing novel that reminisces the period of his youth. And although this is before the sexual revolution, one can read it already bubbling to the surface. Blondie is the narrator and starving writer of the book who could have possibly been Nichols in the early 1960s, and who tells a revealing tale of the microcosm of people of different ethnicities and eccentricities that he encounters; they are an array talented artists, dancers, and musicians who are involved in unhinged personal relationships and interests who have a flare for French New Wave and Italian foreign films, existentialism, and Jean Cocteau. Indeed the book contains a carnival of people with enticing backgrounds, especially Cathy Escudero, the feisty and rambunctious Argentine Flamenco dancer, who wants to be a world-class dancer as well as blondie's friends, the unusual pair, El Coco and Luigi, and Roldán, the owner of the empanada stand where everyone hangs out. In essence, Nichols captures the atmosphere of life in the city where dreams are lived out and disappointments abound, but life goes on. And this is one of those books that may be read more than once because of the unique characters and the period in which they lived.

Well, it's really not the empanadas that gather the diverse crew together at the Greenwich village eatery. "Blondie" a recent college grad with a dream of becoming a writer narrates the tale of a diverse crew of brothers--and sisters. There's Chuy, a boy-toy with only one hand, Eduardo and Adriana, who alternately love, then cheat on each other, and at the center, Aureo, the cook and confidante whose place is the center of the meetings. "Empanada Brotherhood" is a short read, but one you'll want to savor and share with friends who are needing a bit of spice in their lives. Or perhaps gift to the lover of 60s folk music and culture--or a fan of Latin literature.

An unlikely group of characters--mostly emigres from Argentina--comes into existence around a tiny empanada stand in lower Manhattan, sometime in the early 1960s. Losers, lovers, scholars, dreamers, street people, perpetual exiles--they come and go, talk, reminisce, chase women, dream of better times and faraway places. Among them is the unnamed narrator, the kid just out of college, the would-be writer, who has never been with a woman. They call him "blondie," with a small "b" and they teach him about life. The "gang" from the empanada stand come and go, pair up and break up, try to survive, quarrel and make up, but "blondie" only has eyes for Cathy Escudero, the fiery flamenco dancer, who never gives him a second glance. He spends every possible moment watching her rehearse, until the wealthy Aurelio from Uruguay comes on the scene and pushes him out of the picture. The young narrator pines for the beautiful dancer, writes, collects rejection slips, and keeps his manuscripts stacked on the floor of his tiny apartment. So, will "blondie" ever get published? Will he get the girl? Any girl? And what will happen to the colorful losers of the empanada brotherhood? You'll have to read the book to find out. I promise, you'll love it. Author Nichols writes simple, lucid prose, sprinkled with Argentine street argot and references to flamenco, that is fascinating and engaging. Somehow he creates a feeling of intimacy, from the very first page, so that you too become part of the gang, and you care what happens to each of them. What else can I say? A charming, sad, sweet memoir of a vanished time and place and a young man's coming of age. I recommend it highly. Reviewed by Louis N. Gruber

The Empanda Brotherhood opens with the flash of quick action and flaming hot, to-the-point dialogue which (as it turns out) is a characteristic of the entire novel. After a half-dozen short chapters, I began to wonder if I had made a mistake buying this book: the characters are simplistic or simply vulgar, Argentinian immigrants whose lives are conditioned by gutter-talk (not my usual reading preference). But then--strange thing!--I began to think my way out of this dilemma; strange, I say, because thinking is not what the men do at the empanada stand, and yet, "Blondie," the narrator, storyteller, and observer--and the author's persona--does a lot of thinking. The empanada stand is where Blondie waits and watches and witnesses. Between the quiet, tender observations of Blondie, the reader can see that these rough characters really think and feel. And it's absolutely clear that college-educated Blondie feels something for these proletarian-like working stiffs. At several points, I was sure that the rejection letters Blondie gets for his college romance novel (which later becomes The Sterile Cuckoo) tie him closely to these denizens of Greenwich Village. They have all failed in some way to find the American dream, but they dream in their own way--and that becomes the heroism of this novel. Unforgettably, music plays a large role in the subtle magic of this narrative. The flamenco guitar and dance beat out a tempo and waves of emotion. The dancer, Cathy, and the guitarist, Jorge, come alive visually on the page. The scenes in the dance studio create a counterpoint to all the silent pondering that weighs on Blondie's young heart. There is a kind of melancholy that characterizes this novel: lost youth, vanished friends, lost New York, music heard no more. I'd like to think that, like the dancer, the narrator Blondie has found the *duende* he seeks: that incandescent fire that burns us from the inside, the flame of life itself.