Herrin (House of the Deaf
) invokes the patron saints of picaresque, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, to furnish a conceit on which to hang his diffuse tale: "Which do you fall in love with first?" he wonders, the Valencian beauty he married 30 years ago, or the enigmatic country that shaped her? He explores this rhetorical conundrum through a jittery cut down memory lane, whisking his wife through the Spanish hinterlands to arouse fond memories of his sublimely ridiculous quest to woo and marry her—a quest besieged with challenges leveled by the patriarchal powers-that-be. He delivers an amusing, perceptive treatment of the culture clash that both stoked and soured their romance: straight-shooting, Kentucky-bred Protestant meets coddled, delicate Spaniard steeped in Catholicism, in a land where Americans engender both awe and suspicion. Readers who can surrender to Herrin's nostalgic drift and quixotic dreaminess will find moments of lyrical beauty and genuine sweetness, especially his finely wrought observations of Spain's plazas and vistas. Suffused with a palpable sense of wonder, the travelogue bends over backwards to double as a valentine to his wife. (July)
