Unfortunately my relationship with Astraea Press came to an end in March when, after two rounds of editing, my line editor discovered that one of my characters, Federico, was homosexual and, I was informed, Astraea Press does not publish books with homosexual characters.
They asked me, politely, to change this.
But how could I? Federico was a real person (Federico Garcia Lorca (1898-1936)), a Spanish poet who, as I mention in my story, was killed during the first days of the Spanish Civil War, because, among other reasons, he was homosexual. To change or not to mention his sexual orientation felt like a betrayal to him and would also destroy the plot of my story.
So, with regret, I told them I couldn’t do it.
Although, soon, I found another publisher interested in the English version of BÉCQUER ETERNAL, they do not publish titles in Spanish.
Too late now, to query Spanish Houses, I decided to publish BÉCQUER ETERNO myself.
Right now, a Spanish POD publisher is printing the galleys.
If things go as planned, a printed copy of BÉCQUER ETERNO, my humble homage to Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, the most romantic of the Spanish poets, and Federico Garcia Lorca, IMHO, the greatest Spanish poet of the XX century will be at the Exhibit Bécquer tan cerca… A través del arte in Sevilla from May 25 to June 24.
I have found the perfect quote for my adult paranormal Becquer Eternal in Federico Garcia Lorca’s play The House of Bernarda Alba. Which is totally fitting giving that Lorca is one of the main characters in the novel, and Both Becquer and Lorca are immortal.
The line is, “Gazing into his eyes I feel as if I’m slowly drinking his blood.”
Here you can listen to his moving speech while accepting the award in which he credits Federico Garcia Lorca for giving him his voice and an unknown young Spaniard who taught him how to play guitar.
To write a query requires summarizing your novel down to two or three informative and engaging paragraphs that not only tell what your book is about, but also capture the mood of your story.
A difficult task I have decided to accomplish in several steps.
So here is my first attempt. From 50,000 words to 356 words. Not bad for a first try. But I don’t think it works for a query, more like a blurb?
Anyhow, here it is. Any feedback will be greatly appreciated.
Meet Becquer (Previously Garlic for Breakfast)
In the dreams of every woman there is a man. A man who understands her, a man who listens, a man who whispers words of love that sing without music when he makes love to her.
In the dreams of every writer there is an agent. An agent who reads her book carefully and loves it almost as much as she does. An agent who discusses her characters as if they were real, as real as they are for her. An agent who will sell her book and draft a contract she understands at the first read. An agent who will give her the freedom of writing what she wants, then helps her rewrite it until it’s perfect, or as close as perfect as it will ever be.
Carla has met both. In one. His name is Becquer and he’s a poet. Or, more exactly, he was a poet back in 1870, the year he died. Only he didn’t died, just stopped being human.
He’s an immortal now, a stronger, sense-enhanced creature that lives on human blood.
There are others. Well-known poets and musicians and heroes we have met on the pages of History books. Poets like Lorca who was once his lover and still loves him. Statesmen like Cesare Borgia who hates him and has sworn to destroy him.
And there are humans who know about them. Humans, like Beatriz, Becquer’s secretary and former lover, who covet his gift. Beatriz who has waited a long time for Becquer to make her immortal and does not take lightly to his interest in Carla.
When Carla meets Beatriz and realizes the danger that signing Becquer as her agent poses to her and to her children, she asks Becquer to break their contract. But, by then, it’s too late. Too late for Becquer to escape Beatriz’s murderous scorn, too late for Carla to leave unharmed for he already loves him.
Yes, Carla’s dream has come true. Her dream of finding the perfect lover, the perfect agent, the perfect book contract.
But somehow, along the way, the dream has morphed into a nightmare from which she cannot wake up.
In August 18, 1936, Federico Garcia Lorca was taken prisoner by Nationalist militia in Granada, during the chaos that followed the failed military coup that ignited the Spanish Civil War. He was never seen again, and his tomb was never found.
He had been born in Granada in 1898 and, by the time of his death he was an internationally renowned poet and playwright.
Interested in the Spanish folklore in his youth he published Libro de poemas (1921) and Romancero Gitano (“The Gypsy Ballads”) (1928). Some of these early poems (La Tarara, Verde que te quiero verde, Anda jaleo, Romance de la luna) have become deeply engraved in the Spanish subconscious and are still widely sang today.
Romance de la Luna.
Verde que te quiero verde.
De los cuatro muleros.
Lorca was also an accomplished pianist and (as reflected in his poems) a lover of the Cante Jondo or “deep song” performed by singer and guitarists in his native Andalucia. A passion he shared with the renowned Spanish composer Manuel de Falla.
Falla’s ballet El Amor Brujo was brought to the screen by Carlos Saura in the 1980s with Antonio Gadés and Cristina Hoyos.
As was Lorca’s play, Bodas de Sangre.
Lorca’s other two plays in the Rural Spain trilogy, Yerma (about the impossible yearning of a barren woman for a child) and La Casa de Bernarda Alba (a tragedy that explores the repression suffered by women in traditionalist Spain) have also been filmed. La casa de Bernarda Alba by Mario Camus in 1982 and Yerma by Pilar Távora in 1998.
The three plays are still performed today both at University Drama representations and at mainstream theaters.
To escape a deep depression brought about by an unrequited love and his conflicted feelings about his homosexuality, Lorca traveled to New York where he lived in 1929-1930. NYC made a profound impression in him. During his visits to Harlem and later in his trip to Cuba, he discovered and fell in love with African-American spirituals which reminded him of Spain’s “deep songs.”. All these experiences, coagulated in his book Poet in New York.
Years later, the Canadian bard, Leonard Cohen discovered Lorca’s book in a Montreal bookstore. Lorca became Cohen’s idol so much so he named his daughter after him (Lorca).
Cohen’s translated and set to music one of Lorca’s poems Pequeño Vals Vienés. You may recognize this hauntingly beautiful song as Take This Waltz.
Apart from the films based on his plays, several movies have been made with Lorca himself as protagonist. (Go here http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0305030/ for a complete list). Among them, La Desaparición De García Lorca (1996) with Andy García, terribly miscast as Lorca, and the deeply moving Little Ashes (2009),
In Little Ashes, Robert Pattison, of Harry Potter and Twilight fame, does a moving portrait of the Surrealistic painter Salvador Dali and the Spanish actor, Javier Beltrán, plays Lorca as a young man in the fictionalized account of the time they spent together, and with the well-known director Luis Buñuel, in the Residencia de Estudiantes de Madrid. You can read my review at http://www.notreadyforgrannypanties.com/2011/06/little-ashes.html
Later Dali and Buñuel moved to Paris where they collaborated in the surrealist film A chien Andalous,
as shocking and provoking today, as it was in 1929 when it was conceived.
Lorca believed the title of the film (totally unrelated to its content) was meant as an insult to him. For as he says in Little Ashes, “I’m the only andaluz they know.”
His death at 38 put an early end to this talented poet, playwright, theater director (he travelled with a tent, La Barraca, through Spain in the 1930s, bringing the classical theater for free to towns and villages), and painter. You can see a gallery of Lorca’s pictures here: http://www.slide.com/r/3s4clS893z9ZetLN0MEKGwknzkdVTTEU?fbr=1
This episodic review does no justice to the multiple artistic facets of this immensely talented poet, but I hope it has awaken your interest to learn more.
