In 1998, Fernanda Eberstadt, her husband, and their two small children moved from New York to an area outside Perpignan, France -- a city with one of the largest Gypsy populations in Western Europe. Here she found a jealously guarded culture, a society made, in part, of lawlessness and defiance of non-Gypsy norms; and she met MoIse Espinas, the lead singer of the Gypsy band, Tekameli. As her relationship with the Espinas family developed over the years, progressing from mutual bafflement to a deep-rooted friendship, Eberstadt found herself a part of the captivating Gypsy life--a life rich with tradition and culture, but slowly being consumed by the modern world.From the Trade Paperback edition.