“It was not love at first sight when Tom landed in Spain from the tropical island of Cuba during a blizzard in the winter of 1960. That would happen several weeks later on the sandy beach in front of his family’s rented house, when the sun finally came out and lit up the waters of the Mediterranean and the white peaks of the Sierra Blanca Mountains above Marbella. A new scent—salt and iodine—would soon replace the aroma of mangoes and tobacco from the plantations behind his home outside Havana, and the explosive steps of flamenco would supplant the sensual moves of the Caribbean. And that is how the American author’s 50-year love affair with Spain began: a tumultuous relationship, seen first through the eyes of a young exile from Cuba living under the iron grip of Franco, later as a foreign correspondent covering the euphoria of its young democracy, and finally as a film festival agent sharing his secret watering holes with Hollywood’s elite.
His adventures include a quest for his roots in the wilds of Galicia where fairies and witches still roam, a search for the origins of the Castilian character in the heartland of Spain populated by the ghosts of mystics, monarchs, generalissimos and saints, a musical voyage into the soul of flamenco in the sun-drenched south, and a culinary hunt for the ultimate ham, tapa and paella experience in the forests, beaches and lagoons of the peninsula.
In Spanish Son Thomas de la Cal shares his personal insights into Spain, its colorful history and its people, and takes the reader on an exciting journey to a magical place where they live, eat, sing, and love like there is no mañana.”