Deep in Mexico and Spain
by Edward Stanton
Travel, Memoir, Mexico, Spain | Published: March 2021 | Goodreads
When the American ministers of hate demonized Mexico and the coronavirus struck Spain, Edward Stanton sat down to write a homage to these countries that he knows as well as his own. The result is VIDAS: Deep in Mexico and Spain, the first travel memoir to portray the two most populous Spanish-speaking countries in one volume, written with the perspective of an American and the knowledge of an insider.
A wayward descendant of Mexico’s national hero, a femme fatale who recites poems in cantinas, a Tunisian prostitute in Barcelona, a Spanish psychiatrist who fights brave bulls, the wise owner of the world’s oldest restaurant. They are just a handful of the characters portrayed in this vibrant travel memoir. VIDAS: Deep in Mexico and Spain explores subjects as diverse as the art of blasphemy, the cult of the Virgin Mary, superstition and witchcraft, the bordellos of Mexico, Spain’s paradise of drink and food, the bullfight and the running of bulls in Pamplona, the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. Every chapter of this book depicts a different person or place, which combined create a cross section of the most populous Spanish-speaking countries in the New and Old World.
VIDAS: Deep in Mexico and Spain is a passage from childhood to adolescence and maturity, a tribute to nature and the open road, an exaltation of love, food and wine, a journey from the tender, mortal flesh to the luminous world of the spirit.