Isabel Fonseca describes the four years she spent with Gypsies from Albania to Poland, listening to their stories, deciphering their taboos, and befriending their matriarchs, activists, and child prostitutes. A masterful work of personal reportage, this volume is also a vibrant portrait of a mysterious people and an essential document of a disappearing culture.

Like is such a frivolous word for a history of the dispossessed. It was well written, and heart rending and fascinating. It made me ashamed. I did not like it, but I'm glad I read it. ( )

I didn't know anything about the "gypsy" people, other than the brief mentions in history class and their supposed appearance in fiction and movies, when I read this book. To really see more of their community was eye-opening, although I did recognize it was written by an outsider. This was one of those once-every-few-years books that possessed me for quite some time. ( )

Vaclav Havel correctly says that how his country (and our world of communities) deal with people like the Rom was a litmus test for democracy. As so-called democracies take the place of tyrannical regimes ancient hatreds and jealousies erupt: how can they be managed? Fonescu's beautiful book takes an even handed look at the problem without trying to romanticize the Rom and without pulling punches. The violence in Europe, but especially in Romania has so little purchase in the popular mind, racism finds ways to justify itself even among people who consider themselves non-racist. ( )

The author is a journalist (she is not an anthropologist, though I had to check that). She spent time in various Eastern European countries in the early ‘90s (this was published in 1995), to talk to and get to know the Romani (aka Gypsies) to learn about their lives and culture. She also talks to other local people to find out their views of the local Roma (usually negative).

Overall, the book was ok. I didn’t learn as much as I thought I might. I have read a book by Ian Hancock, who is Romani himself, and I liked it better. Fonseca was a bit all over the place – the chapters didn’t really tie together. I guess each chapter was in a different country. I think I didn’t like her writing style. She included some photos of some of the various people she talked to. I suppose the most interesting to me was the chapter on the Holocaust. I’m not sure any stereotypes were quenched by reading this – she said it early in the book: they lie, they steal… I found it odd. If she was trying to fight stereotypes (as other reviews are saying), I definitely missed that. Oh, one stereotype broken: they don’t travel, nor necessarily want to always be travelling; they are just so unwelcome in so many places, they don’t have a lot of options. I’m still rating it ok. It held my interest, so that’s a good thing. It just wasn’t what I expected, and I didn’t learn as much as I’d hoped. ( )