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WORK TITLE: Tango Lessons
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: https://mbflaherty.com/
CITY: Palo Alto
STATE: CA
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY:
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: no2018024664
Descriptive conventions:
rda
Personal name heading:
Flaherty, Meghan
Found in: Tango lessons, 2018: ECIP title page (Meghan Flaherty)
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS AUTHORITIES
Library of Congress
101 Independence Ave., SE
Washington, DC 20540
Questions? Contact: ils@loc.gov
PERSONAL
Married; children: one.
EDUCATION:Columbia University School of the Arts, M.F.A.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Poet. Paths, coeditor.
AWARDS:Academy of American Poets, Walter Glospie Poetry Prize, 2016.
WRITINGS
Contributor of essays and translations to literary journals and online, including Iowa Review, Cactus Heart, Intentional Quarterly, Rumpus, Asymptote, Treehouse, and New Inquiry.
SIDELIGHTS
Italian-American poet Meghan Flaherty published her memoir, Tango Lessons, in 2018, in which she rediscovers an earlier interest in the tango and works through her childhood trauma so she can learn to trust again. Based in New Jersey, Flaherty writes essays and translations that have appeared in literary journals, including Iowa Review, Intentional Quarterly, and Rumpus. She is the recipient of the Walter Glospie Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets in 2016. Flaherty is co-editor of the literary journal, Paths, and holds an M.F.A. in literary nonfiction from Columbia University School of the Arts.
In Tango Lessons, Flaherty writes that as a small child she lived with her substance abusing and promiscuous mother. Even though she was taken in by her loving father and stepmother, Flaherty became terrified of being touched. At age sixteen during study abroad in Argentina, she learned how to tango. Then ten years later, as she struggled to become an actor and had a lackluster love life, she took up tango again. Although she experienced some unwanted sexual advances, particularly by her older dance instructor, eventually she learned that tango was teaching her to trust and persevere. In the book she talks about the men who helped her learn to love and bring passion to her life and about learning to be comfortable in her own skin. The book was named one of the Most Anticipated Titles of 2018 by the Rumpus and one of Charleston City Paper‘s Hot Summer Reads.
In Booklist, Bridget Thoreson explained that Flaherty finds balance in dance and life, and writes with enthusiastic and detailed devotion. “Flaherty traces how this demanding dance gradually led her to demand more for herself,” said Thoreson. A writer in Kirkus Reviews commented: “Well-researched, eloquent, and entertaining, Flaherty’s book is not only a witty, incisive reflection on a beloved dance and its history. It is also an intimate celebration of dance, [and] life.” This thoughtful and entertaining memoir and “This moving story of dancing into womanhood is unforgettable; readers will warm to Flaherty’s unassuming voice and marvelously rendered love of tango,” according to Publishers Weekly contributor.
In an interview with Marisa Siegel online at the Rumpus, Flaherty explained why she wanted to write a book about tango and how it evolved: “I started digging into the history and sociology of the dance as well as the music. Then I had an opportunity to use tango as a subject for a research seminar in grad school. I wanted to write the kind of tango tome I was desperate to read, and of course, I ended up writing my personal history of the dance instead.” In Library Journal, reviewer Barbara Kundanis noted the dark themes of abuse in her early childhood, struggles with intimacy, and near obsession with tango, however, “Flaherty establishes an intimacy with readers that will make them hope she finds happiness.”
Online at Newsday, Marion Winik, who gave a mixed review of the book, was jaded by the extensive descriptions of tango and “Although the dreamy pace, the intellectualizing and the never-ending epiphanies got old for this reader, Flaherty’s writing contains moments of real beauty.” Irene O’Garden also commented in New York Journal of Books on the level of historical detail and multiple excursions into the modern subculture of tango, classes, and conference, however, “Flaherty is so skilled and evocative in describing her emotions, her foibles, her joys, and her fixation that the reader remains invested. We care about her, we want her to do well, get over her problems, and that makes for a good read.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, April 15, 2018, review of Tango Lessons, p. 12.
Kirkus Reviews, April 15, 2018, review of Tango Lessons.
Library Journal, May 1, 2018, Barbara Kundanis, review of Tango Lessons.
Publishers Weekly, April 9, 2018, review of Tango Lessons, p. 69.
ONLINE
Newsday Online, https://www.newsday.com/ (June 22, 2018), Marion Winik, review of Tango Lessons.
New York Journal of Books, https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/ (July 1, 2018), Irene O’Garden, review of Tango Lessons.
Rumpus, http://therumpus.net/ (June 20, 2018), Marisa Siegel, author interview.
Dancing into Love: an Interview with Meghan Flaherty
By Cara Strickland
June 21, 2018
When I first heard about Meghan Flaherty’s new book, Tango Lessons, I felt a little like I was reading my own story. Meghan unconsciously turns to tango dancing to help her heal from past trauma, and to teach her about fully inhabiting her body. I have also experienced trauma, a near death experience, and sort of blindly started salsa dancing every chance I could get. Recently, I started to learn the beautiful, difficult dance of tango.
I love Meghan’s story because it’s first and foremost about falling in love with herself (though, spoiler alert, she does find some romance in the book). Tango helped her become a better version of herself, which is part of what I love about how dancing has affected me. Read along for my conversation with Meghan, and who knows, maybe you’ll find your feet whisking you away to the dance floor.
Tell me about your book?
Tango Lessons is the story of how I learned to dance Argentine tango and how it taught me how to be a woman and also probably a person in the world.
Many people are drawn to tango and other dances for the romantic element, while you made rules against dating dance partners. Would you tell me a little bit about that?
There are plenty of tango dancers that are drawn to tango precisely because of its romantic element, and for people who have a sort of functional relationship to their own sexuality and sensuality and desire it’s perfectly normal and fine—there’s plenty of opportunities in social dance tango to find love or romantic entanglement in the dance. That’s all perfectly normal. For someone with my particular set of baggage it was not as straightforward. I had a very dysfunctional relationship to those aspects of myself. I really wanted to engage it in this intellectual level: ‘oh the history is really interesting,’ and ‘improvisation is very challenging and rewarding intellectually’ and the music and the language. There was so much to engage with that wasn’t sexual that I kept saying, ‘hey this isn’t sexual at all, it’s not really like that.’ Of course, for a lot of people, that physical contact and that intimacy is a way to express that side of themselves— it’s a way even to find a date. I was so terrified of all of those things that I was trying very actively to pretend that it could be done in a nun-ish fashion—you know, like marry the dance, but not engage. That’s what I was trying to do. Eventually, of course, that wasn’t possible. I made these rules to protect myself: not to date dance partners—and I made them after I made the mistake of dating a tango dancer to disastrous effect. Then I broke it again, and finally I made the rule hard and fast and swore off men completely, trying to get my own footing off the dance floor. Then I broke it spectacularly with the man I ended up marrying, so rules, I guess, are meant to be broken. Maybe it would have been better if I’d followed it the whole way through, but I wouldn’t be where I am today.
For you, dancing was a way to work through trauma and learn to inhabit your body again, would you talk a little bit about that?
That is an insight that I arrived at 100% in hindsight. I had no idea that that was what was going to happen going in. I had no idea that that was something that would work. I had no idea that I needed to even work on that. I have this lovely gift of looking back at this time in my life and the obsessive way I was dancing tango, and realizing what it did for me. I went into tango in spite of it being super sexy, and in spite of it being incredibly physically intimate, and in spite of needing to touch strangers all the time when I was, for one reason or another, not comfortable being touched at all. I wanted to be touched very much, but I had lost the ability to know how, and I certainly had no idea how to do it off the dance floor. When I wasn’t able to dance as much and I started thinking about it and processing it after getting a little bit more distance I realized, ‘oh yeah this set of circumstances is really interesting.’ It’s like when you’re pregnant and you’re craving something and it’s because you secretly need that vitamin or protein and it’s not that you really need mango lassis, it’s that you need the probiotics or the calcium in the yogurt, you don’t know what to look for for what you need but you have this sort of pull to something subconsciously. I’m sure in a lot of ways there’s a part of me that knew that I needed this and that helped draw me to tango. I was drawn to the thing that was going to fix the wound I didn’t even realize needed fixing. It wasn’t a graceful transition, to work those things out. With the particular mix of issues that I was bringing onto the dance floor it seems sort of an unlikely choice, it’s kind of like, ‘I’m afraid of this so I’m going to launch myself into it,’ but like I said, I can’t stress enough that it wasn’t a conscious decision. I wish it had been because it would have been sort of an ingenious strategy, but it all happened accidentally. I just sort of stumbled into tango and stumbled into myself, and stumbled into the lessons that I needed to learn, and then tripped over them a bunch of times and came out bruised but much better for the experience.
What are some of the things that you learned about love through tango?
Well, I’d say the first thing I learned is that if you aren’t in possession of yourself it’s very hard to give any part of yourself to someone else. This happens physically with your balance on the dance floor and also emotionally. The mechanics of the dance are so much more improved when you have a good sense of your own axis and your balance and your weight and a sort of trust in the way your own body moves. In order for you to trust somebody else to take that control from you for 3 minutes or however long you’re dancing with them. The surrender feels so much better when it’s given consciously and you’re able to sort of take yourself back at the end of the dance. Over the course of learning to dance, I was really gleefully following, thinking I didn’t have to make any decisions for myself and I could just do what was asked of me—learning to dance back, not just follow, learning to inhabit the dance for myself and sort of be louder in the embrace of my partner and really make it a conversation—not just me following directives in order to not screw up—that became incredibly important. My dance really opened up once I learned how to sort of be dancing in myself as well as with a partner. I think a lot of that is a fitting metaphor for trying to find love. Part of the problem is I was giving too much control and agency to the men that I wanted to be with, however wrongly. It was only when I sort of took a step back and said ‘I need to work on myself, and I need to be able to be in my own body—love and respect myself enough to inhabit my own body, and my own heart.’ That had to happen before I could give either one to anybody else.
Tango really teaches you how to listen to what the physical body that you’re up against is doing and asking for and maneuvering you to do. You have to physically and intellectually listen to the lead without anticipating. You have to sort of cultivate this spontaneity, kind of like an improv, like a ‘yes and.’ The leader gives you the impulse and it’s an invitation. You accept and you give it back, and it all has to happen kind of in this perfect concert with the music. He needs to give you the impulse in enough time for you to complete it musically the way he had envisioned it, but it’s not just about his interpretation of the song—you can give it back with a little bit of flavor. You could listen for what he’s asking for and then give him a little bit that he doesn’t expect. I think that is great practice for falling in love.
So what advice do you have for those looking to start dancing, and what advice do you have for those looking for love?
The first question is very easy: just go. You will never get any younger, any more ready, it will never be easier to get started, and once you finally do start you’ll be kicking yourself that you didn’t do it sooner, so just do it. Just go sign up for a lesson, and if you don’t like the teacher find a new teacher, and if you don’t like the dance, find a new dance. But if you want to dance, if you have that little bell tinkling in you, just follow it and go. You don’t have to take tango, and you don’t have to be completely obsessed, but dance—move your body, meet people, get out there.
For somebody looking to fall in love—back when I was single and I was wondering if I was ever going to find my honest-to-God, grown-up close-your-eyes kind of love, I used to sort of resent it when people would say, ‘you know, the minute you stop looking for it, it’ll find you,’ but I’m afraid it might be true, it was true in my case. So I think I would say, just find your own balance and your own agency and your own sense of yourself and make yourself ready so that when it does come along you’re able to jump into it.
What are your hopes for your readers as you send your book into the world?
I think it’s the same with any personal narrative—you hope that this weird little story that you have to tell is going to resonate with someone, you hope that someone is going to read it and some strange, small aspect of it that wouldn’t be the thing that you would expect is going to strike a chord and that person will feel seen and that their experience and their pain will feel shared or universal in a way.
What I hope most of all is that if they don’t know tango, and they have a preconception of it, that they get a different sense of what the dance is and the history of it and that it maybe leads them to have a new appreciation for it or a new receptivity to tango—that maybe somebody decides to take lessons. Robin Thomas, who I mention in the book, says, ‘We need an army of beginners, yesterday,’ so may this book recruit a couple to that army.
Meghan Flaherty '13 Publishes Debut Memoir, 'Tango Lessons,' to Wide Acclaim
June 22, 2018
Tango Lessons book coverTango Lessons, a debut memoir that has been garnering praise and recognition from a number of outlets and literary voices, written by Alumna Meghan Flaherty '13 was named One of the Most Anticipated Titles of 2018 by The Rumpus.
The memoir follows Flaherty, a directionless 25-year-old Queens resident with a dull job and live-in boyfriend, as she picks up tango lessons after having been introduced to them during a high school trip in Argentina. She begins to discover new things about herself in the arms of her partners, and comes to terms with difficult family issues.
"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," according to a review in Publishers Weekly. "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.'"
Faculty member Margo Jefferson likened the book to "a first-rate piece of dance."
"Meghan Flaherty has written a wonderful book," Jefferson wrote. "Encountering tango she encountered a series of cultures and histories: that of the dance itself; that of its impassioned students, teachers, and acolytes in New York and elsewhere; that of her own very particular desires. Like a first-rate piece of dance, she’s gotten the proportions right: the small details, the sweep of the whole, the use of space, scenery, the group and the solo players. She is entertaining, thoughtful and trustworthy because her self-examination—doubts, insecurities, grief—is never self-indulgent. I caught my breath at the end. Bliss indeed, those last sentences. I can’t wait to read what she does next.”
And faculty member Phillip Lopate called the book: "A dazzingly honest, unblinking memoir, it is also deliciously written, authentically romantic and enormous fun to read."
In a starred review, Kirkus called Tango Lessons "well-researched, eloquent and entertaining."
“Flaherty’s book is not only a witty, incisive reflection on a beloved dance and its history," according to the review. "It is also an intimate celebration of dance, life, and the art of taking chances. A vibrantly intelligent reading pleasure."
The Rumpus Book Club Chat with Meghan Flaherty
By The Rumpus Book Club
June 20th, 2018
The Rumpus Book Club chats with Meghan Flaherty about her debut memoir, Tango Lessons (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, June 2018), how the book found its current format, and writing a memoir at a young age.
This is an edited transcript of the book club discussion. Every month The Rumpus Book Club hosts a discussion online with the book club members and the author, and we post an edited version online as an interview. To become a member of the Rumpus Book Club, click here. Upcoming writers include Nicole Chung, Idra Novey, Tom Barbash, Esmé Weijun Wang, and more.
This Rumpus Book Club interview was edited by Marisa Siegel.
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Marisa: Hi, and welcome to The Rumpus Book Club chat with Meghan Flaherty about her debut memoir, Tango Lessons!
Meghan Flaherty: Hi, Marisa! Thanks so much for having me.
Marisa: My first question: do you still dance tango?
Meghan Flaherty: Yes! And no! With an eight-month-old baby at home, my tango dancing happens mostly in the kitchen these days. I also injured my foot a couple of years ago, so I haven’t been dancing nearly as often as I’d like.
Meghan Flaherty: Although we did take our baby (at three months) to a tango práctica here and ended up having to dance holding him between us!
Eva Woods: Hi, all! I have so many questions about this one!
Meghan Flaherty: Hi, Eva!
Marisa: Eight months old is such a great age!
Eva Woods: Hi, Meghan! I am so happy to be talking to you! I loved the history in the book. How did you decide how much to include?
Eva Woods: (Also legit eight months might be the cutest age of all time.)
Meghan Flaherty: Eva! My ideal reader! Blessings on your house!
Eva Woods: Haha, thank you! I also danced tango for about a year, but it was very much not for me, so reading this was very interesting about how it can look from different viewpoints.
Meghan Flaherty: This book was originally supposed to be a super-geeky treatise on tango, rather than a memoir. Then I succumbed to pressure from readers and editors to add in more (and more… and more…) of the personal story. In the end, I haggled to keep as much about tango itself as I could.
Eva Woods: OMG if you ever want to send anyone your history notes HI IT ME I WANT THAT.
Meghan Flaherty: Eva, I just might take you up on that! 🙂 I can also steer you towards some really great tango scholarship.
Eva Woods: It wasn’t just the dance, but the connection to the political and sociological origins and history of it that were SO GOOD TO ME.
Meghan Flaherty: Eva, YES! It’s what makes the dance so wonderfully complex! It carries so much within it!
Eva Woods: My dance background started with ballet I only did to continue with gymnastics, and moved straight into hip hop and pole. Those last two are both very, very, very different than tango, so when I tried it, my body revolted.
Marisa: How did you decide how to structure the book, in terms of the personal sections and the interspersed history sections?
Eva Woods: Marisa, great question. I also want to know. It seemed like such a tightrope to walk.
Meghan Flaherty: I originally thought to use the personal narrative as a kind of clothesline, finding places where I could hang the more theoretical stuff as I came to engage with it. Eventually the clothesline became larger than the clothes… or I started being asked to hang so much of my own dirty underpants on it (or something like that! :))
Eva Woods: You did a great job of explaining why tango worked so well for you, though. Like the structure of it was mirrored in other things you found comfort in throughout the book. The minimalism you embraced toward the end, for instance. I thought that was really interesting.
Marisa: I never danced (not well, at least, or formally) but I did break my foot badly several years ago. Meghan, did the back injury, and then the foot injury, change your relationship to tango and dancing?
Meghan Flaherty: The injury absolutely changed my relationship to dancing. It made me feel fallible in a way I wasn’t prepared for at the time. And now it complicates everything. It’s made me be a lot more patient with myself. And it’s made me reincorporate tango into my life with a lot more balance.
Meghan Flaherty: Sorry about your foot!
Marisa: I have some cool scars, so it’s not all bad.
Eva Woods: The way you talk about tango reminds me of yoga so, so, so much! And I think everyone who does any sport long-term, but especially yoga, goes through a period of ego-reckoning. Do you feel those effects even though you aren’t dancing as much, in the rest of your life?
Eva Woods: Oh also, don’t let me forget, I want to talk about your relationship with Peter for one million hours. I also have a dude best friend and, like, it’s so much and also so fulfilling.
Meghan Flaherty: I think when you fall in love with something so thoroughly, to the point of obsession, it makes you so vulnerable. Your highs are higher and your lows are lower. You open yourself. So then when something happens and you’re no longer able to dance/practice/etc. at the rate you’re used to, you have to step back and figure out how to tap into what you were getting from it in some other way.
Eva Woods: Meghan that’s so wise!
Meghan Flaherty: (Which is also what got me started listening to the music more carefully and digging into the history more deeply…)
Marisa: This is the least original question to ask a memoir writer, but how did the people in your life (and therefore, in your book) react to being written about? How did you navigate sharing details of others’ lives?
Marisa: I’m thinking of your parents and Peter, but also separately the more minor characters like the Mogul.
Meghan Flaherty: Eva, oh my stars. Yes, it’s… a thing. Marisa, yes, but good question! It depends so much on the person.
Marisa: Did you let anyone in the book read the book before it went to print?
Eva Woods: Did anyone have specific fears about how they’d come across?
Meghan Flaherty: With the nearest and dearest, I did my best to keep them in the loop, letting them preview their sections and give feedback/make corrections. My dad, Marty, Edward, etc. Peter didn’t want to read beforehand, but he gave me carte blanche to tell whatever truth I needed to. (And I was so conscious of wanting to honor our strangely beautiful dynamic and try to describe it in all its idiosyncrasy. So many people thought we were the weirdest, most dysfunctional people in the world—particularly after our breakup. But it works for us and I wanted to show how… if that makes any sense.)
My editor asked me not to try and take Enzo or the Mogul out to hash things out over a beer, so with them I used pseudonyms and tried to be as generous as I could. I figured, as long as I made myself look every bit as bad as my suitors, it would all come out even!
Eva Woods: I think this is a great approach, honestly. I have a particular ex that I know would be like, “do your worst, love, I earned it and you’re nice,” and then like fifty other ones that would be pseudonyms.
Meghan Flaherty: Ha! Yes! I’m also painfully aware that my memory is imperfect. There may be things I got wrong, but I hope it’s clear I did my level best to be as honest and accurate as possible.
Eva Woods: Okay so my next question you’ve half-answered already, but I would like to know more specifically: how do you feel about writing a memoir so young? I know it wasn’t your original concept, but did you think about it in terms of not being like, Diana Vreeland yet?
Meghan Flaherty: How did I feel about writing a memoir so young? Nauseated!
Eva Woods: Tell me so much about this. There are a lot of memoirs (that don’t have even half the peg or content yours does) by women our age and I can’t imagine doing it, but because I read all of them, I think about it so much. I definitely would have also been nauseated. I think you did a great job making it not navel-gazey.
Meghan Flaherty: Oh, Eva. Thank you so much for that! Major sighs of relief from over here.
Eva Woods: Listen, I wouldn’t have even asked the memoir question if I didn’t think you made it work. I would have avoided it to the ends of the earth!
Meghan Flaherty: I partly wanted to write a book about tango to avoid writing a memoir so young! (I have a lot of material about my childhood and mother that I’ve been working on for years, but I wanted to sit on it longer.) Tango Lessons became a memoir very much against my will (at least at first). But then I had a very patient editor who helped me take the book in the direction it wanted to go.
Meghan Flaherty: I’m trying to relax into the memoir thing. Dance with the one that brought you, etc., etc. 🙂 It might just be my bane in life. But thank you so much for making me feel better about it!
Marisa: Do you feel more or less anxious now that the book is out in the world?
Meghan Flaherty: Marisa, so much more anxious! Part of me hopes that people buy it, but no one actually reads it! And then the rest of me just hopes that something in it resonates with a reader or two, or perhaps inspires a couple of lost souls to take up tango dancing. I’ll happily make a fool of myself for either outcome.
Eva Woods: What was the process like of deciding that this wasn’t just a passion for you, but a subject you wanted to write a book about?
Meghan Flaherty: Eva, tortuous! I think it started when I first was injured. I was desperate to stay in tango any way I could, so I started digging into the history and sociology of the dance as well as the music. Then I had an opportunity to use tango as a subject for a research seminar in grad school. I wanted to write the kind of tango tome I was desperate to read, and of course, I ended up writing my personal history of the dance instead.
Eva Woods: OMG “buy this and then hide it in a corner of your house no one will ever find” is so relatable.
Meghan Flaherty: YES! I had to pretend I was writing in a vault! Hard to keep that delusion up now…
Eva Woods: Okay let’s keep this uncomfy train going then! You talked about sex very frankly but also it was super-hot! How did that part of the writing work for you?
Marisa: That is such a great question!
Meghan Flaherty: Such a great question! I’m delighted you thought it was hot. That took… multiple drafts. My tendency was (and is) very much to pan to the fireplace.
Meghan Flaherty: Thankfully, my early readers weren’t having that. They kept saying, “Meg, for the love of god, give us the sex.” My first attempts were…. terrible. The first time I tried to write about Enzo’s body I ended up referring to his “smooth baton.” That phrase didn’t make it into the book. LOL.
Eva Woods: LOL, AMAZING. It ended up being really good. Not too much, but also not glancing and precious.
Marisa: Did your mom read the book ahead of publication? I can imagine her giving that feedback. 😉
Marisa: I loved her character, and your relationship with her. The love was so palpable.
Meghan Flaherty: Yes, my mother read several early drafts. She wasn’t thrilled with the geeky tango treatise aspect, and was always at me to be more honest, to complicate what I might have oversimplified, to not let myself off the hook. Particularly when it came to the sex! She is largely responsible for my coming to understand the distinction between intimacy and sex. Those parts of the book were very much steered by her. Tragically, she passed away before the book sold and so she didn’t get to see it take its final shape. I really believe she would have approved wholeheartedly of the finished product.
Marisa: Yes, I apologize; I forgot that (I am an avid reader of the acknowledgements sections of books, though you might have mentioned in within the book, too, if I’m now remembering correctly). I’m certain she’d be proud.
Eva Woods: The way she came across in the book really made it seem like she would have been happy with any way it ended up as long as it was clear-eyed and honest.
Meghan Flaherty: Thanks! I agree. She was all about honesty, even and especially at your own expense! 🙂
Eva Woods: Since I’m asking the touchy questions today, what kind of thought went into telling the story of a dance, and country, populated by people of color?
Meghan Flaherty: Oh jeez. So much thought. What it came down to was reverence. I partly wanted to paint a picture of this art form that I loved so much that would go beyond the stereotypes and sound bites in the popular imagination. I tried to approach it with as much respect as possible and defer to the voices of porteños wherever I could. There is so much wonderful tango scholarship in Argentina—but of course most of it is in Spanish. I just hoped to give people a taste for what was out there. Also, most of what I wrote about the dance itself and the social scene was particular to tango as it exists in NYC and the US.
Eva Woods: I really dig that outlook on it. You definitely got me reading more about Argentinian history!
Eva Woods: This isn’t a question at all, but I also really appreciated you not glossing over the machismo in tango. Like, it doesn’t render the dance invalid! But acknowledging it is really important, I think.
Marisa: We only have a few minutes left, and I always ask the following two questions: 1) Who are your writing influences? and 2) What books are you reading right now, and what forthcoming books are you especially excited for?
Meghan Flaherty: Like every writer of literary nonfiction, I remain in total awe of Joan Didion and Virginia Woolf. I’m gobsmacked by Jo Ann Beard, Jesmyn Ward, Maggie Nelson… Helen Macdonald’s H Is for Hawk blew my mind as far as braided narratives go. Katherine Boo is a total god for turning journalism into literature. And, I mean, Mary Karr. “God is in the truth”—the memoir writer’s mantra. (Or at least it should be!)
Marisa: That is a wonderful list of writers!
Eva Woods: Jesmyn Ward!!!!
Meghan Flaherty: JESMYN WARD. her sentences slay me.
Eva Woods: Sing, Unburied, Sing is maybe a flawless book.
Meghan Flaherty: Yes! And Salvage the Bones was also flawless.
Meghan Flaherty: Currently reading Celeste Ng‘s Little Fires Everywhere and James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room. Plus a whole load of “how not to eff up as a new parent” books. Also reading Patricia O’Toole’s incredible bio of Woodrow Wilson, The Moralist. That book is an absolute master class in nonfiction.
Marisa: We’ll be running a great piece about Giovanni’s Room and reading queer literature as a closeted queer teen later this week!
Eva Woods: My almost-thirteen-year-old is sitting next to me and honestly the only parenting advice I ever heard that was good was: “It’s just a human person who lives in your house now.” Like, it’s a relationship, like all of the other relationships.
Meghan Flaherty: Amazing! It’s so beautiful. I’m just impressed when another day goes by and he’s still breathing!
Eva Woods: Babies are so durable and resilient. I miss that age! Little cheeks, etc. How has having him around affected your writing habits?
Marisa: Enjoy the adorable but not walking/talking/sassing! I love my kiddo (nearly four years old) but they are little whackos at this age.
Meghan Flaherty: Well, I have much less time to write, so I try to cram as much as I can into the few hours I’m given!
Meghan Flaherty: Marisa, he’s crawling and, frankly, a little pissed that he can’t yet manage walking. He’s currently overpowering his dad to try to claw at my hair for attention! The poor wee piglet!
Marisa: Mine flopped around for months before finally figuring out walking (after his first birthday). But he was an early talker, and now he NEVER stops. Not ever. He talks in his sleep.
Marisa: I’ve definitely kept you longer than promised. Meghan, thank you so much for joining us tonight!
Eva Woods: I really loved talking to you, Meghan!
Meghan Flaherty: It was so absolutely my pleasure! Eva, thank you so much! It was mutual!
Marisa: Go enjoy your baby! Have a good night, and thank you both for the great conversation!
Meghan Flaherty is an Italian-American poet and memoirist living in New Jersey. She received the Walter Glospie Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets in 2016, and received an honorable mention for the same award in 2017. Meghan also received an honorable mention for the Kathy Potter Memorial Writing Award in 2017. She is co-editor of the literary journal, Paths. With the help of her mentor, Edvige Giunta, Meghan is writing a memoir.
Meghan Flaherty's first book, Tango Lessons, a personal history of Argentine tango, will be published in June 2018 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
She received her MFA from Columbia University School of the Arts in literary nonfiction. Her essays and translations have appeared in The Iowa Review, Cactus Heart, The Intentional Quarterly, and online at The Rumpus, Asymptote, Treehouse, The New Inquiry, and elsewhere. She lives with her husband, baby, and rescue mastiff in northern California, and enjoys purchasing vegetables in Romance languages around the world.
Tango Lessons
Bridget Thoreson
Booklist. 114.16 (Apr. 15, 2018): p12.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Full Text:
Tango Lessons.
By Meghan Flaherty.
June 2018. 320p. Harcourt, $26 (9780544980709). 793.330982.
Flaherty first came to tango at the age of 16 in Argentina. That early fling turned into an obsession when she started to study the dance in earnest at the age of 25. Burdened by the darkness of her traumatic childhood, she was living in New York with a boyfriend who was mostly a platonic roommate, doing drab work while trying to get a fledgling acting career off the ground. Tango was her refuge. But as she eloquently describes in this searching memoir, this was no easy escape into a world of fishnet stockings and sassy heels. Instead, she learns that to truly tango requires dedication, perseverance, and a willingness to let go and embrace the unknown. As she navigates the unwanted attentions of a showy instructor, ill-advised romantic turns with dancing partners, and late nights spent in the arms of strangers at milongas, or tango events, Flaherty slowly finds her own axis, both in dance and in life. With an acolytes enthusiastic, detailed devotion, Flaherty traces how this demanding dance gradually led her to demand more for herself. --Bridget Thoreson
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Thoreson, Bridget. "Tango Lessons." Booklist, 15 Apr. 2018, p. 12. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A537268005/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=e3a5daf6. Accessed 24 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A537268005
Flaherty, Meghan: TANGO LESSONS
Kirkus Reviews. (Apr. 15, 2018):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Flaherty, Meghan TANGO LESSONS Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (Adult Nonfiction) $26.00 6, 19 ISBN: 978-0-544-98070-9
An essayist's debut memoir of how a passion for tango dancing transformed her life.
Flaherty took her first tango lessons when she was 16 and studying abroad in Argentina. Ten years later, she was living in New York, unhappily surveying the dismal prospects in both her love life and professional pursuits as an actress. Desperate "to do something, however bold or blind," and longing for human touch, she plunged back into the world of tango. A traumatic childhood that included living with a substance-abusing, man-hungry mother marked the author at her deepest levels. The more she engaged with tango, the more she realized that at the core of her desire to master the dance was a wish to simply "close my eyes and trust." Her first lessons felt like a liberating "insurrection." But later encounters with "the maestro," an older man who sought to school her in tango and a passion she did not want, tested her resolve. Flaherty persisted, and as she improved, she found other teachers who showed her that tango dancing was a dialogue of "betrayals and...broken loves" between two bodies as well as a pathway to a womanhood she had suppressed and ignored. She eventually found her way into the New York underground of tango venues, where she met Enzo, the lover who moved her into greater awareness of a body she had allowed to be led but had not allowed to lead. A fellow "tango nerd"-turned-friend named Marty helped the author evolve. With him, she learned to dance a tango that was a sensual expression of an autonomous woman unafraid to take risks in life and love. Well-researched, eloquent, and entertaining, Flaherty's book is not only a witty, incisive reflection on a beloved dance and its history. It is also an intimate celebration of dance, life, and the art of taking chances.
A vibrantly intelligent reading pleasure.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Flaherty, Meghan: TANGO LESSONS." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Apr. 2018. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A534374994/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=74cc1459. Accessed 24 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A534374994
Tango Lessons: A Memoir
Publishers Weekly. 265.15 (Apr. 9, 2018): p69+.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Tango Lessons: A Memoir
Meghan Flaherty. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $26 (320p) ISBN 978-0-544-98070-9
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." (June)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Tango Lessons: A Memoir." Publishers Weekly, 9 Apr. 2018, p. 69+. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A535100004/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=316020df. Accessed 24 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A535100004
Tango Lessons. By: Kundanis, Barbara, Library Journal, 03630277, 5/1/2018, Vol. 143, Issue 8
Flaherty, Meghan. Tango Lessons. Houghton Harcourt. Jun. 2018. 320p. ISBN 9780544980709. $26; ebk. ISBN 9780544986633. MEMOIR
In her debut memoir, Flaherty takes us on her journey down the rabbit hole into the world of tango. What starts with taking a single dance class becomes an obsession, with the author eventually describing herself as "a four-door Volvo among Ferrari coupes" in regard to the skill level she achieves. Surviving abuse early in her life, Flaherty struggles with intimacy in her 20s, and Tango enables her to touch others, in a formal sense. Working tedious jobs and in an unfulfilling relationship, she becomes immersed in a culture of classes and clubs. Since this takes place in New York, the atmosphere of the city makes the scene all the more romantic. As Flaherty gets better at the dance, her self-confidence and independence grow. Despite the book's dark themes (even with a lighthearted cover), Flaherty establishes an intimacy with readers that will make them hope she finds happiness. VERDICT An engaging memoir that will have readers looking for the closest tango studio.
New books on dance: Henry Alford's 'And Then We Danced,' Meghan Flaherty's 'Tango Lessons'
From zumba to swing dance to tango, dance offers life lessons in two new releases.
"And Then We Danced" by Henry Alford (S&S, June 2018) Photo Credit: S&S
By Marion Winik
Special to Newsday
Updated June 22, 2018 6:00 AM
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For participatory journalist Henry Alford, it all started with zumba, the Latin-rhythm dancercise class he took in order to write a story for The New York Times. Six months later, he still found himself rising at dawn to zumba twice a week. "I had just turned 50, which in gay years is 350," he confides; his "love handles" had become "so shelf-like as to offer suitable support to a collection of decorative thimbles." But calorie-burning was just the gateway experience for Alford, who became fascinated with dance's potential in the realms of intimacy, healing, spirituality, social entrée, politics and rebellion — all examined in "And Then We Danced: A Voyage Into the Groove" (Simon & Schuster, 226 pp., $26).
Over the next five years, Alford signed up for everything from pas de deux classes and a swing dance conference to tap lessons with Alvin Ailey and a "contact improv jam." He researched the lives of the greats — Isadora Duncan, Martha Graham, Bob Fosse, Arthur Murray, Mikhail Baryshnikov — and includes anecdotes about each. For example, in the early 1960s, Martha Graham told a roomful of Texas college students that "all great dancing stems from the lonely place." "Where is the lonely place?" asked a girl in the audience. "Between your thighs," Martha told her. "Next question?"
Although the chapters of "And Then We Danced" don't seem to have been written on journalistic assignment, they nevertheless feel like a series of magazine articles. The finest works of immersion journalism — George Plimpton's "Paper Lion," Ted Conover's "Newjack" — have a narrative drive that is missing here. Yet Alford's jaunty reportorial style makes the meandering journey perfectly pleasant. From his participation in a Twyla Tharp community dance piece in a public park to his breakout role in a four-minute art film about contact improv, he wholeheartedly illustrates the wisdom that shimmers at the heart of his book: "Hobbies are hope."
"Tango Lessons" by Meghan Flaherty (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, June 2018) Photo Credit: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
In Meghan Flaherty's "Tango Lessons" (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books, 312 pp., $26), tango plays a role similar to that of the fancy restaurant in Stephanie Danler's "Sweetbitter," the hit novel that recently became a Starz series. Here, tango class is the setting for a young woman's coming of age in New York City, the school where she will study not just the techniques and traditions of the dance but also culture, history, philosophy, gender roles, sex and, of course, her own psyche. Although "Sweetbitter" is fiction and "Tango Lessons" is memoir, the books have a similar tone, a dramatic, Sylvia Plath–like lyricism.
"Each dance was cosseted in darkness, like an ancient poem of death where that was nothing to be feared. My eyes sank to a close. A soft curtain fell. Behind it, there was only music, and I moved through air."
"Tango was kudzu, and tsunami, the quiet center of my storm. I thought: how peaceful it might be to stay, to drown."
There are more descriptions of tango in here than seem possible; some rhapsodic, some metaphorical, some researched and reported, backed up with pages of notes at the end.
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When Flaherty comes to tango at 25, she is in a drifty stage of life both economically and romantically. Having suffered serious abuse before the age of six, when she was taken from a birth mother whom she never saw again, she has only been with boyfriends who don't want to have sex. Through the enactment of intimacy in tango, she ultimately finds her way to real connection, though her first partner is a no-good player and the next a meatpacking mogul who gives her herpes.
Although the dreamy pace, the intellectualizing and the never-ending epiphanies got old for this reader, Flaherty's writing contains moments of real beauty: "Summer cracked its egg against the city. Heat and sunlight spilled into the valley built by skyscrapers, warming the pavement, bringing out sewer smells."
Another antidote to the overwrought flights of fancy is Flaherty's mother, who can always be counted on to sound a note of realism. "If a man is over forty and has never been married," she proclaims with regard to one of the tango boyfriends, "there's something wrong with him." Flaherty insists she's mistaken; it's "a generation thing." "Oh, sweetie, I'm not wrong."
I predict this book will find passionate fans among readers less jaded than I am. It will also sell a lot of tango lessons.
By Marion Winik
Special to Newsday
Reviewed by:
Irene O'Garden
“Forget your fishnet fantasies and take the rose out of your teeth,” Meghan Flaherty tells us in the prologue to her memoir Tango Lessons. You know right away, as a dancer does, that you are in good hands.
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.
As an antidote to dispiriting acting auditions and grim cubicle life, Flaherty decides to take tango lessons at a studio in Soho. The choice is not arbitrary—she fell in love with tango after a teenage term abroad in Argentina. The mournful music sounded “like old lace draped across the table of a century,” and the idea of mastery gripped her. She even bought the proper shoes, but returned to the States before she could use them. She straps them on at the beginning of the book and in spite of the physical and social discomforts that ensue, she rarely wants to take them off.
At the heart of this book is a remarkable paradox which propels us through the story.
Tango takes two, as we know. Flaherty tells us in the first few pages that, due to childhood trauma, she does not care to be touched. So it is fascinating that she becomes obsessed with this profoundly intimate dance form. The extremely controlled touching fills her need for contact.
Flaherty is not without relationships, atypical as they may be. She lives with a man who enjoys her company but does not desire her. She hopes tango might make her more mysterious and appealing to him. It does not, and yet this touchless relationship suits them both for quite some time.
Her loving stepmother offers advice from afar as Flaherty sinks deeper into tango-mania. Will she find something more than the “three-minute affair” of the dance itself?
Obsession notwithstanding, Flaherty is self-aware and writes beautifully, even as she relates the frustrations and tedium of drilling the strict dance steps with strangers or lecherous instructors. She tells us that beginners learn in a “quarantine of skill,” hoping that “patience is tantamount to talent.”
Her wide reading is one reason she is such a good writer. The book is laced with references in a welcome, unsnobbish way—Borges and Dickinson, Billy Collins and Kay Boyle. Especially delightful is this unexpected and appropriate allusion: “Everyone in tango has their Tenzing Norvay, the friend they make at base camp who helps them up the peak.” It’s refreshing when an author has such regard for her readers.
The title Tango Lessons carries multiple meanings. In addition to covering the lessons Flaherty takes, the book is chock-full of tango history lessons. The author is thorough—she discusses the cultures in which tango evolved and from which it was lifted. She honors traditional composers, pivotal figures, and the evolving, diverse contemporary scene. It’s like an unexpected documentary running within the memoir.
You may want a tablet or phone nearby as you read to hear a piece of music she mentions or to watch a specific dancer or two. Sometimes it’s frustrating to imagine the dance moves and music she describes. Flaherty is especially poetic, though, in conveying their effect on her. She tells us that tango music is “visceral and sad, yet somehow relieves you of the very sorrow it inspires.” Referring to one musician she says, “It sometimes feels as though he’s scraping music out of your chest.” This is vivid stuff and helps us understand tango’s hold on her.
Some readers may be impatient with the level of historical detail and the multiple forays into the modern subculture of tango with its master classes, conferences, and alternative communities. But so it is with obsessions. Flaherty is so skilled and evocative in describing her emotions, her foibles, her joys, and her fixation that the reader remains invested. We care about her, we want her to do well, get over her problems, and that makes for a good read.
Readers may question the sexism inherent in traditional tango, Flaherty’s preferred form. Men must invite. Women, never. Men lead, women follow. Flaherty saw the contradiction in herself. She says she is a “strident feminist” everywhere else in life, but tango she was willing to forgive. Though it is an outdated and unfair model, it gave her a way to safely relate to men. And unlike leading, following feels to her like a meditation.
It’s no spoiler to say that the ultimate tango lessons are those Flaherty learns about herself, moving from the practice room to social dances, step by step, out of herself until she comes to understand “there are some things dancing can’t solve.”
Pageantry, rules, and decorum are demanded in tango, but the dance itself is wholly improvisational. It is the gift of any strict training, of mastery. The steps become second nature so that one can combine them freely and spontaneously.
As a writer, Flaherty is well on her way. Let’s hope that she continues to enjoy writing as much as she enjoys tango.
Irene O'Garden is a playwright, poet, and memoirist. Her most recent book is a children's poetry collection, Forest, What Would You Like? A new memoir, Risking the Rapids: How My Wilderness Journey Healed My Childhood is forthcoming late 2018. She received a 2012 Pushcart Prize for an essay, "Glad to be Human."
Meghan Flaherty presents "Tango Lessons: a Memoir"
“A dazzlingly honest, unblinking memoir, it is also deliciously written, authentically romantic and enormous fun to read.”— Phillip Lopate
Megan Flaherty has close ties to our local community as her parents and many of her extended family live in Newburyport.. Her new memoir, out this June from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is garnering rave reviews. 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. 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. Forcing herself out of her comfort zone - moving past the scars of old trama which had left her fearful of being touched-- and literally into her dancing shoes, she discovers a whole new world and way of being.
Meghan received her MFA from Columbia University School of the Arts in literary nonfiction. Her essays and translations have appeared in The Iowa Review, Cactus Heart, The Intentional Quarterly, and online at The Rumpus, Asymptote, Treehouse, The New Inquiry, and elsewhere. She lives with her husband, baby, and rescue mastiff in northern California, and enjoys purchasing vegetables in Romance languages around the world.
"As Virginia Woolf wrote, 'What a lark! What a plunge!' Meghan Flaherty has written a wonderful book. Encountering tango, she encountered a series of cultures and histories: that of the dance itself; that of its impassioned students, teachers, and acolytes in New York and elsewhere; that of her own very particular desires. Like a first-rate piece of dance, she's gotten the proportions right: the small details, the sweep of the whole, the use of space, scenery, the group, and the solo players. She is entertaining, thoughtful, and trustworthy because her self-examination--doubts, insecurities, grief--is never self-indulgent. I caught my breath at the end. Bliss indeed, those last sentences. I can't wait to read what she does next."
-- Margo Jefferson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Negroland
"Meghan Flaherty is simply an astonishing writer. Brimming with sensuous detail and sophisticated wit, every page of Tango Lessons seduces and rebuffs, beguiles and delights. This is easily one of the finest books ever written about dance, and every bit as graceful as the art itself."
-- Bronwen Dickey, author of Pit Bull: The Battle over an American Icon
Event date:
Friday, June 22, 2018 - 7:00pm
Event address:
Jabberwocky Bookshop
at the Tannery, 50 Water St.
Newburyport, MA 01950