Duende is an account of his years spent in Spain feeding his obsessive interest
in flamenco: he subjects himself to the tyranny of his guitar teacher, practisin
g for hours on end until his fingers bleed; he becomes involved in a passionate
affair with Lola, a flamenco dancer (and older woman) married to the gun-toting
Vicente, only to flee Alicante in fear of his life; in Madrid, he falls in with
Gypsies and meets the imperious Jesus. Joining their dislocated, cocaine-fuelled
world, stealing cars by night and sleeping away the days in tawdry rooms, he fi
nds himself spiralling self-destructively downwards. It is only when he arrives
in Granada bruised and battered, after two years total immersion in the flamenco
lifestyle that he is able to put his obsession into context.
