Space Between the Stars: My Journey to an Open Heart
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Deborah Santana is best known for her marriage to music icon Carlos Santana-a thirty-year bond that endures to this day. But as a girl growing up in San Francisco in the 1960s, daughter of a white mother and a black father-the legendary blues guitarist Saunders King-her life was charged with its own drama long before she married. In this beautiful, haunting memoir, Deborah Santana shares for the first time her early experiences with racial intolerance, her romantic involvement with musician Sly Stone and the suffering she endured in that relationship, and her adventures in the freewheeling 1960s. Yet it is her spiritual awakening that is the core of this story. The civil rights movement was the foundation of her growth, the Woodstock era the backdrop of her love with Carlos. The couple was drawn indelibly together by a search for truth and spirituality, but while yearning to be filled with God's light, they were pulled dangerously toward a manipulative cult. They eventually disengage themselves from the guru and reclaim control of their lives, putting their love for each other before the cult's increasingly strenuous demands. Space Between the Stars is a moving account of self-discovery, rendered in raw, beautiful prose, by a woman whose heart has remained pure even in times of despair. As Deborah Santana talks frankly about her lifelong fight against racial injustice and her deep-seated loyalty to her family, ultimately it is the struggle to remain a spiritual and artistic force in her own right, in the shadow of one of the world's most revered musicians, that shines through as her most indomitable pursuit. Publishers Weekly As the daughter of a musician (Saunders King), the former girlfriend of another (Sly Stone) and the wife of more than 30 years and partner of still another (Carlos Santana), Santana could've easily produced a thin tale of gossip and name-dropping in the pop music life. Instead, she has written a balanced, open memoir of a life that hasn't been without its missteps. When recalling her late-'60s affair with Stone, Santana explains how he swept her off her feet with love, introduced her to LSD ("my body was in a fluid form, open and alive"), but then became violent, which ended the relationship. She discusses her spiritual awakening years later, fostered by her interactions with the guru Sri Chinmoy, conveying the joy his lessons initially gave her, as well as her later feelings of being controlled by Chinmoy's teachings. The memoir is episodic as it moves, vignette-style, from the author's comfortable San Francisco childhood to Carlos's six-Grammy sweep in 2000. But Santana manages to illustrate her belief that "learning can come from good and bad experiences": suffering infidelity, trying recreational drugs, having an abortion, getting a college education, marrying Carlos, establishing a charity (the Milagro Foundation, which supports underprivileged children), managing the Santana Band and running a marathon have all taught her valuable lessons that any reader can benefit from. Photos not seen by PW. Agent, Jillian Manus. (Mar.) Forecast: Big publicity plans-including an author tour, radio interviews, outreach through the Milagro Foundation and a mailing to Santana Fan Club members-should yield solid sales. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
