When Eberstadt began knocking on doors in the Gypsy district of Perpignan, France, she thought she was going to write a book about a band: the renowned Gypsy rumba group Tekameli. The band's 1999 album Ida y Vuelta
had made its members superstars in Europe. If she didn't land a meeting soon, Eberstadt feared, the group might abandon little Perpignan for "somewhere northern, rich, and cold"—New York, Paris, London—before she could ever find them. But when she finally befriended lead singer Moise Espinas, Eberstadt realized she'd worried over nothing—Tekameli will never leave Perpignan, at least not for fame or money. Everything they love is bound to the city's most rundown district, St. Jacques. "I have never been anywhere, including New York's Bowery in the 1970s, where you see more black eyes," Eberstadt writes. As she became more familiar with Espinas's wife and friends, her project evolved into something more difficult to categorize. Like Adrian Nicole LeBlanc's Random Family
, Eberstadt's book reveals the values of an impoverished subculture by following the lives of a complex, loving family; it also includes enough Gypsy history to satisfy any flamenco or Gypsy rumba fan. A critically acclaimed novelist (The Furies
, etc.), Eberstadt proves herself a master of nonfiction as well. (Mar.)
