From Publishers Weekly
The opening sentence of Alvarez's second collection promises a piquant and quirky read; what these six sensuous tales deliver is much more. Spanning half a century in the lives of two lovers, Alvarez's tale of a junkman, Orlo, and his Greek sweetheart, Leini, crackles with jaunty lyricism and unabashed emotion. In a blue-collar neighborhood in East Baltimore, Orlo was 30 when he was first bedazzled by the sight of 17-year-old Leini eating a bowl of pigs' feet, but the teenager is soon married to a brutal man she does not love. Their clandestine affair blossoms throughout the next five decades, generating many succulent, sensual meals and quite possibly a daughter. Orlo and Leini become legendary among successive generations of neighborhood characters, who are also rendered in several stories. "The Legend of the Velvet Room" is set in the present day with a young reporter (Alvarez's thinly disguised alter ego) searching for Orlo and Leini's story as the plot. Alvarez's passionate storytelling reveals the beauty and poignant zest for life in this homey community, and the city of Baltimore glows through the stories in real and made-up occurrences and locations. Alvarez's craft is elegant and refined enough to read as verse, but his nonchalant treatment through smile-inducing metaphors and imagery never isolate the reader. Though much ground from his first collection (The Fountain of Highlandtown) is retraveled, this new set is a rare treat that even those with a nonadventurous palate will find delectable. (Aug.) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Rain Taxi, Fall 2000
"A cycle of stories ambitious to achieve mythic scope...full of local color...lyrical."

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Stories are always better than facts," says a character from "The Legend of the Velvet Room", the novella-length finale of Orlo and Leini. "I'd bet even Orlo and Leini enjoyed telling their story more than living it."

the joy of story-telling percolates throughout this much-anticipated follow-up to Rafael Alvarez's debut, The Fountain of Highlandtown. These new stories follow the title characters' secret love affair over the course of the twentieth century. The collection works perfectly as a cohesive piece of fiction wherein characters are fully developed and with whom readers fully empathize (or despise, as the case may be).

the collection includes three revised versions of stories that appeared as the Orlo and Leini trilogy in Fountain, two new stories, and a terrific third piece of work that amounts to a novella.

Sold-out Fountain, which garnered cover blurbs from Stuart Dybek and Madison Smartt Bell, was widely reviewed, eliciting comments such as an "eye for the little tragedies and romances of the city" (Chapel Hill Herald); "lyrical and dreamy prose is rich with nostalgic sentiment and a kind of searching for place and self" (Jewish Times); and "young, Lolita-like women are among his favorite characters"(Duke University Chronicle).

Prior to publication, the Maryland Center for the Book named Alvarez winner of its first annual Rising Star Award, which honors a Maryland writer showing exceptional literary promise. "Rafael Alvarez has a way with words that is pure magic—at times I feel I am reading poetry," said coordinator Pat Bates of the Howard County Library, which was designated the home of the Maryland Center for the Book by the Library of Congress in 1996.

Long-time Baltimore Sun reporter Alvarez is also the author of Hometown Boy: The Hoodle Patrol and Other Curiosities of Baltimore (Baltimore Sun, 1999), a compilation of his journalistic exploration of the city. He has written for several television series, including: Homicide: Life on the Street."

Born in 1958, Alvarez, a lifelong Baltimorean who graduated from Mount St. Joseph High School and Loyola College, continues to cover the city he loves for The Sun. He lives in a pink rowhouse in the heart of his Holy Land—the Highlandtown neighborhood in east Baltimore and home to his immortal characters.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly