Thursday, September 17, 2020

Mercedes Barcha & Gabriel Garcia Marquez

 


Gabriel “Gabo" and Mercedes met when they were 9 y 14 years young and he knew. She did not. Sandy and I met when we were 14 y 15 and I knew. Sandy did not. I really did. And I didn’t know much, but I knew.

We have to stay married for three more years to tie the Garcia Marquez’s. I have read many of his books. I always wondered why he would take two showers every day. An adventure to Colombia taught me why.

Is theirs a fabulous story or yes?  Sandy, Marnie and I have been to his casa in Cartagena, and even the bar at the El Hotel Santa Clara where he drank.

A friend, Charles Gregory of Albuquerque, New Mexico, pushed the book “One Hundred Years of Solitude" on me twenty years ago. Charles had spent much of his young life in a mission near the Alamo in San Antonio. 

I do not enjoy fiction. I read the whole book on the playa at Na Balam with my toes in the warm white sand. I did not like it. A little too fictional for me.

Years later on Isla Mujeres, Mexico, I found a copy of the novel abandoned at the free book table at “Cabanas" Maria del Mar. That copy sold for $3.95 in 1971. Once again. I reread it, thinking to myself. “Don’t be so serious. Enjoy the words.”  Last night in my casita on the bog, I reread the first three pages -- WOW!

Only 50 million copies sold? Published the same year Sandy and I were married. A coincidence? I think not.    
ja ja      

Have YOU read it ?

su servidor,           
Roberto Francisco Tocino

Follow this link to read Mercedes Barcha's obituary: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/23/books/mercedes-barcha-dead.html

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