lori tharps' kinky gazpacho: life, love, & spain

at certain times i have no race. i am me.
-zora neale hurston

this hurston quote, lifted from the opening strains of chapter 5 of the memoir in question, describes the expatriate experience in whole, perfect, and very simple terms. to live outside your country of origin is to live the uncanny. in the end, the expat life, the traveling life, doesn't really make you a different person. it reinforces facets of your character, sheds light on your strengths and weaknesses, casts you into relief. if you're fully engaged in the adventure, in adapting, you become more you. it's counterintuitive, and so sits as awkwardly in the mind, as the title of tharps' memoir, kinky gazpacho, sits on the tongue.

by contrast, kinky gazpacho: life, love and spain is the fluid, engaging story of how lori tharps' becomes a person in the world through travel, language, and relationships. much of tharps' conflict and angst revolve around the reconciliation of her childhood fantasies of spain, with it's harsh, racist, and xenophobic realities. (you'll be happy to know that spain as since learned more subtle, sophisticated forms of racism.) tharps embarks on a relentless quest to find belonging, a sense of self, and a coming to terms with blackness, armed with a journalist's knack for connecting dots. this leads her to an almost palpably satisfying climax of a historical discovery, as well as, (and this is no small thing), lasting love.

indeed, some of the best bits are her interactions with her junior-year-abroad-romance-cum-husband, manuel. as a couple, they must learn to navigate the rough waters of race relations together. how do you translate the untranslatable nature of, what tharps calls, "racial baggage"? especially to the ones you love? it's the story of tharps life, yes, but her life in a global context, with a backdrop that shifts from milwaukee to morocco, spain and back; a cast of characters ranging from young militant college students in new england, to freewheeling bohos in salamanca. as nieztche once said, ' a good writer possesses not only his spirit, but the spirit of his friends'. with each of their voices, kinky gazpacho pushes the limits of memoir genre, and enters the territory of [what i think should be] modern ethnography. on top of it all, unlike in marrying anita, tharps gets the guy. i'm just saying...

i received my hardcover copy from my mom last february, who thought i'd enjoy it, and sent it in one of her gi-normous care packages. i read it in one day.*

the paperback is out. cop it.


*not just saying this cause tharps showed me big love. it's a true story.