GARCIA LORCA: Playwright and Poet

Chronicling the travels and social contacts that purportedly shaped Federico Garcia Lorca's short career, Mildred Adams' informal narrative proceeds from his childhood in a wealthy Granadan household, detailing his immersion in the local Gypsy folklore, and follows as those roots survive his relationships with avant-gardists--such as Dali--in Madrid; are reinforced by his homesickness and introspection in New York; and eventually emerge in his masterpieces. Mostly compiling quotes from the memoirs of Garcia Lorca's intimates (including her own memories of their passing acquaintance), Adams contributes few details that aren't in such standard references as Edwin Honig's Garcia Lorca. She does uncover a hitherto undocumented visit to Vermont, dwelling on the ten-day stay for an entire chapter, but her investigation is not as intensive in more important areas. She blames Garcia Lorca's romantic difficulties with women on a ""'defect'"" which she fails to define or discuss (though she later points out a defense of homosexuality in his last play, The Public). Worse yet, there's little mention of the writer's reactions to the tumultuous events which ultimately led to the Spanish Civil War and his execution by the Fascists. Simply because Garcia Lorca didn't participate in partisan politics, Adams writes him off as the ""least political of poets and dramatists."" Certainly the harsh criticisms of conventional political and sexual mores in Yerma and The House of Bernarda Alba deserve more analysis in the playwright's life story.