Such is the consensus among readers and reviewers alike. This dark, haunting tale asks whether it is possible to survive a love that consumes you.
To escape a life of abuse, fifteen-year-old Evan Adamson sacrifices the love of his childhood sweetheart only to find himself caught up in the ill-begotten adventures of three Gypsy outcasts who ultimately teach him the ways of the heart and the soul, and most importantly that, "...there will always be that in this world which goes beyond understanding and speaks to the heart in a more meaningful way." There is Mad Nikolai, who carries a secret beyond the possibility of thought; the old fortune-teller, who comes to accept Evan as part of their "destiny"; and Armanda, the sixteen-year-old beauty who reads the dark and foreboding enigmas in Evan's palm. He is drawn by their powers and mesmerized by their ways, confused by "visions" and "vague premonitions of things to come." The story is filled with Gypsy tales and curses, the bujo (a "switch-the-bag" swindle), murder, infidelity, love, and revenge. When Evan finds himself torn between the dark girl of his dreams and a promise he made to his mother years before, he sees in a single moment the reflection of his own true nature and the capacity for a love that transcends all else. By the very enigma of riddles, he comes to discover himself. And those discoveries are both heartbreaking and wise, as complex as they are devastating -- for in heaven and in our dreams, love is simple and glorious, but it is something quite different in the world of flesh.
Excerpt
He told no one about the childhood beatings, neither his elementary nor Sunday School teachers, not even his friends. And then one day, Alta Mae Robbins' mother saw the backs of his legs at a swimming party, just a few welts and scars, mostly scabbed and healed over. He was teetering on the brink of a dive from the edge of the pool, when she called to him. He knew she was there, leaning back in a chaise longue, wearing a two-piece yellow swimsuit. He had noticed her earlier, and even before she called to him, he could feel her presence, wondering if she had noticed him. When he turned, she was balancing a glass of iced lemonade on her upper thigh, but she rose a little from the lounge and waved him over.
"Evan -- Evan Adamson. My gosh, honey. Come here."
She was kind of skinny, and her tanned body glistened with oil, all up along her legs and across her stomach and the tops of her breasts. She had a narrow waist and unmistakable breasts haltered and slung in the yellow bikini top. She leaned on her elbow as Evan approached her, and her breasts up close were even more surprising than he'd thought. Alta Mae and her plump friend got out of the water and came and stood on the other side of the lounge, and looking at them he felt the rabbiting of his heart. In their one-piece suits, shiny and soaked through, they had hardly any breasts at all, arms clasped in shivering self-love, points of water dripping from eyelashes and chins -- but still Evan could see an older Alta Mae in her mother, in the blue eyes, the damp, wheat-colored hair greased slick at the temples, and the little parentheses at the corners of her mouth. He remembered thinking even then that he could maybe sketch her like that, if only he could carry her away in his head, back to the dim light of his second story room. The arc of her jaw with a charcoal and the line of her nose smeared by his thumb. Her mouth was saying something or trying to; she was leaning toward him and her mouth went like a fish's, swallowing air in circular gasps.
"My gosh, Evan. Turn around," she finally said. "My gosh. Thomas, come here a second."
Alta Mae's father came from the patio, with a pair of hedge clippers in his hand. He was prematurely gray, wearing a kindly smile beneath his moustache, and his legs were alarmingly white beneath the hem of his shorts.
"Holy shit," he said.
"Daddy!" Alta Mae closed her eyes against the mortification in her voice.
He set aside the clippers and stooped up close to get a better look at the backs of Evan's calves. He whistled.
"Bobbed wire," Evan explained, looking across at Alta Mae, before he could even think.
"Barbed wire?"
He told them he had fallen into some barbed wire and the doctor had given him a tetanus shot and sulfathiazole.
"Well, you be careful in the water," Mrs. Robbins told him. She leaned toward him and pecked him on the forehead, and he felt the singe in his cheeks and glanced away from her bikini top to the fixed blue of her daughter's eyes. Mr. Robbins put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed in a friendly way and the sensation of it sank around him both hallowed and warm, each watching eye unknowing witness to something restored in his heart. Evan wondered about being part of their family, and briefly saw how it might be, where images of hope, fantasy, and expectation got hold of him and darkened all else, and he glanced from one to the other, father-mother-daughter, and wished that maybe he could have hugged one of them -- Mrs. Robbins, he guessed.
Professional Reviews
The Gypsy Lover - A Classic Coming-of-Age Story
Reviewed by Frances Obsorne
Steeped in Thought Book News
"I must tell you, it's worth it! THE GYPSY LOVER is a classic coming of age story…an artfully written novel that can be understood on many different levels; it is a book worth reading several times to capture the full flavor of its message of hope, healing and redemption."
THE GYPSY LOVER is a classic coming of age story, in which a young boy takes a spiritual journey of healing and redemption. Evan has lost his parents: he loses his father two months before he's born and his mother when he is seven. His aunt and uncle, who hate Evan's deceased parents, take him into their home but abuse him badly. Evan leaves his adoptive home in a state of crisis and takes up with a band of outcast gypsies.
The character of Evan, though fairly straightforward, provides a vehicle for the exploration of the role of imagination and pain in life's lesson. Evan, his entire life, has known nothing but pain. His dead parents provide the primary focal point for his pain: his unknown father was a poet and exemplifies a strong "might have been" in Evan's life -- to be raised by an intelligent, gifted writer; and his mother, beautiful and graceful, could have provided stability and culture. Instead, Evan is raised by two ignorant abusive people who despise what they cannot ever know.
In the gypsies, Evan discovers his mirror image, a doppelganger, in the form of Armanda, a girl of mixed heritage. She, too, has lost a parent (her mother) and may have been sexually abused by her father. She must reconcile the poetic, wild gypsy side of herself with the knowledge that she is outcast among her own people. Each is an aspect of the other: Armanda is the emotional one seeking knowledge, while Evan is the intellectual one seeking after the spiritual.
No coming of age story would be complete without a sexual element. Evan finds himself attracted to two girls, Armanda and Alta Mae; each represents a different aspect of womanhood. Armanda is earthy, unpredictable, and highly charged physically. She attracts the sensual, physical side of Evan. Alta Mae, pure and church-going, comes from a good family and represents all the positive aspects of conventional life.
In this journey of spiritual healing, Evan must learn to see outside of himself, to see past his pain. Armanda says it succinctly, as she heals Evan's physical injuries: "Won't nothing heal without pain." And that leads to the point of the crystal ball in the novel: to divine his own nature. Evan's grief over his lost mother and unknown father must subside before he can grow.
In THE GYPSY LOVER, Evan is given two strong, healing messages. From the gypsies he learns that life is always "a sad and joyful exchange." It's this bittersweet quality that gives life its special character. One cannot have joy without pain, nor vice versa. One feeds off the other, just as Evan and Armanda fed off each other. From Alta Mae, he learns the supreme lesson of forgiveness and redemption when she tells him that "everything you've experienced and might have done is subject to second thought and any wrongs can be righted through him who saves." In offering Evan a home to call his own and blessing him with forgiveness, Alta Mae gives him what he needs to heal.
The journey to enlightenment is a long one, but the old gypsy crone says it best when she tells Evan: "The imagination is a land of many spirits. It sometimes deceives, it sometimes conceals, it sometimes tricks or creates illusions of the heart…It allows us to experience more than we know. And if that source from within is pure, it can foster a greater enlightenment, the imagination can."
THE GYPSY LOVER is an artfully written novel that can be understood on several different levels; it is a book worth reading several times to capture the full flavor of its message of hope, healing and redemption.
The Gypsy Lover - Unequaled and Recommended!
Reviewed by Jan Izatt
Romance Reviews Today
"Intoxicatingly poetic…by turns stunningly beautiful and prosaic, THE GYPSY LOVER is innovative, unequaled, and recommended."
Evan has lived most of his life alone in the world as an orphan and different from his peers. After the death of his parents, he is sent to live with his Aunt Missy and Uncle Goose, who resent and mistreat him. He writes in the footsteps of his poet father, penning deep and soul-searching entries in his journal, mixed with typically adolescent and tortured lines. At the age of fifteen, Evan runs away, and fate leads him into a head-on collision with Armanda and her family. Armanda is a gypsy, traveling with her grandmother, her father and a stolen corpse packed into the back of their camper. The "virgin temptress" as she calls herself, Armanda is the sixteen-year-old daughter of a gypsy and a "gaji," or non-gypsy woman, damning her in the eyes of both worlds, neither of which she belongs to completely. Circumstances lead Evan to join their group, and they take off on a mad cross-country journey.
After the first two days, Evan falls in love with Armanda, calling her the joy and sorrow of his soul. This is an eerie echo of what the gypsies call a sad and joyful exchange, where a person comes into contact with someone in the afterlife. Evan finds himself increasingly drawn into Armanda's way of life, and the gypsy awakens new senses within him, tuning him into his spiritual awareness as well as his desire for her. "O Cowgirl, she."
The suggestion of the supernatural in the events of the story is intriguing. Evan and Armanda both seem to have the gift or curse of second sight. It is suggested that Armanda is her mother's spirit reborn, and to a lesser extent the same is suggested of Evan and his father. Evan glimpses things in the crystal ball, and Armanda's mother appears in the form of a raven. It is difficult to decide when Memmott means to interject a mysterious aspect to his story, and when he is showing the projections of a lonely or poetic mind.
This is not a light or humorous book, but is romantic in a tragic way. THE GYPSY LOVER encompasses many issues from finding yourself, first loves and supernatural beliefs, to coming of age, cultural differences and life's first brushes with grief. The prose runs from intoxicatingly poetic to adolescently vulgar, echoing the turbulence in the minds of most people at that age. By turns stunningly beautiful and prosaic, THE GYPSY LOVER is innovative, unequaled, and recommended.
The Gypsy Lover - An Enthralling Read!
MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW
Roger Ladd Memmott's THE GYPSY LOVER is the dark, romantic, intrigue-filled saga of Evan Adamson, a fifteen-year-old boy who escapes his abusive home life to cast his lot with three mysterious Gypsy outcasts - a madman, a wise fortune teller, and a captivating young woman. Money swindles, deceit, murder, love, and revenge surround the unlikely group in this complex tale of hard choices and multiple pathways. THE GYPSY LOVER is enthusiastically recommended...an enthralling read from cover to cover.
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