Tango Lessons
A Memoir
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- $17.99
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
A woman’s story of learning to dance, and becoming comfortable in her own skin and in the arms of others: “Witty, incisive [and] vibrantly intelligent.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Tango was an unlikely choice for Meghan Flaherty. A young woman living with the scars of past trauma, she was terrified of being touched and shied away from real passion. But by her late twenties, she knew something had to change. So she dug up an old dream and tried on her dancing shoes.
In tango, there’s a leader and a follower, and, traditionally, the woman follows. As Meghan moved from beginner classes to the late-night dance halls of New York’s vibrant tango underground, she discovered that more than any footwork, the hardest and most essential lesson of the dance was to follow with strength and agency; to find her balance, regardless of the lead. And as she broke her own rule—never mix romance and tango—she started to apply those lessons in every corner of her life. Written in wry, lyrical prose, and beautifully enriched by the vivid history and culture of the dance, Tango Lessons is a transformative story of conquering your fears, living your dreams, and enjoying the dizzying freedom found in the closest embrace.
“Like Sweetbitter, this is a memoir of a young woman trying to make it in contemporary New York City. Like H Is for Hawk and Julie and Julia, it is also portrait of obsession...Flaherty is self-aware and writes beautifully.”—New York Journal of Books
“Flaherty's writing contains moments of real beauty.”—Newsday
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
At the beginning of this thoughtful and entertaining memoir of the transformative power of dance, Flaherty is a directionless 25-year-old with a humdrum job at a nonprofit and a platonic live-in boyfriend in Queens. She grew up with a cocaine-addicted single mother until, at age six, her father brought her to live with him and his new wife in their loving home. Flaherty was first introduced to tango on a high school term abroad in Argentina; a decade later she decided to sign up for tango lessons in New York City. The first classes were disappointing, but she soon found meaning and fulfillment in the dance movements and in the arms of her partners. Flaherty wonderfully sketches the tension and play within the dance ("every time a leader lunges forward and the follower steps back... the leader opens up an empty space, inviting occupancy"); throughout, she captures the emotions and the mournful, elegiac beauty and history of tango ("for Argentines, it is a living history, written in them root and blood and earth"). In tango's embrace, Flaherty learned to let go of her troubled past and find her own power and balance on and off the dance floor. This moving story of dancing into womanhood is unforgettable; readers will warm to Flaherty's unassuming voice and marvelously rendered love of tango, "a sad thought danced."
