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Space Between the Stars: My Journey to an Open Heart
 
 
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Space Between the Stars: My Journey to an Open Heart [Paperback]

Deborah Santana (Author)
4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)

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Book Description

April 11, 2006
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.


From the Hardcover edition.


Editorial Reviews

From 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.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

Advance praise for Space Between the Stars

“With the candor and vulnerability of one whose search for truth far outweighs any need for subterfuge, [Santana] writes of her husband, her friends, and her family, not as if unaware of their famous names, but as one more impressed with the quality of their souls. This lovely, loving book will make any woman who survived the sixties smile and shake her head in recognition, and give any man with the good sense to read it an unforgettable glimpse into the heart of a woman.”
–Pearl Cleage, author of Babylon Sisters

“I couldn’t put this book down. Beautifully written, full of fine detail, it breaks illusions about gurus, rock stars, and stereotypes about race. This is a dynamic memoir of an extraordinary woman’s life.”
–Natalie Goldberg, author of The Great Failure and Writing Down the Bones


“Deborah Santana bravely takes us on a fleshy earthbound romp across her rock-and-roll life. She stirs the memories of a generation’s messy crawl from girl to personhood, and seasons them with redeeming grace, joy, and unfolding. Cancel the spa; this is the release you’ve been seeking.”
–Alfre Woodard, actress

“Deborah Santana has blessed us with a precious jewel of a book. Her intimate gift of storytelling delights our senses and collects our tears in a resonant memoir. . . . This book has touched my soul with an abundance of grace and wise counsel. It yields good fruit in season.”
–LaTanya Richardson, actress

“A beautiful memoir that will delight, surprise, and inspire readers. Deborah Santana has the courage to candidly discuss her life at the center of rock-and-roll history including its glamour, excesses, and glories–and show us a much bigger truth–the power of the human spirit to prevail over the shadows of the human mind.”
–Mark Bryan, co-author, The Artist’s Way at Work



From the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 368 pages
  • Publisher: One World/Ballantine (April 11, 2006)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0345471261
  • ISBN-13: 978-0345471260
  • Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.8 x 8.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #636,391 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

19 Reviews
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4 star:
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3 star:
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2 star:
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Average Customer Review
4.3 out of 5 stars (19 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A Powerful Memoir, December 6, 2004
By 
S. R. Gelman (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This is an intimate, revealing, highly readable memoir of an exciting, unusual, and deeply examined life. Deborah Santana's beautifully written book allows the reader to accompany her on a heady trip through San Francisco in the 1960's and 70's, as she takes us on a backstage tour complete with sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll.

But this is much more than a hip jaunt though the wild worlds of music and celebrity. It is also a journey through times of social, political and personal upheaval and awakening. It is a story of coming of age that is filled with romance and motherhood, mysticism and business, loneliness and family, fear and strength. Her honest, heartfelt, and often funny account can also be a source of inspiration and solace due to her remarkable honesty and her ability to overcome prejudice, insecurity, abuse, heartbreak, and loss.

Ultimately it is the triumphant tale of a courageous woman who has experienced pain and privilege, hardship and success and faced them all with real sincerity, humility, spirituality, and, most of all, love.

Deborah Santana is a powerful, eloquent writer who uses words like prisms through which we can learn to see the world, and ourselves, in new ways.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Everyone struggles!, June 11, 2005
By 
This isn't your ordinary "wife-of-celebrity memoir." Deborah King Santana is the daughter of an Irish-English professional woman and an African-American jazz musician, brought up in a sheltered, secure life, with pride in herself and her heritage. Her adult life will be neither sheltered nor secure-and never ordinary.

Deborah meets Sly Stone as a teenager. She is totally unprepared for his world, but is so charmed and seduced by him, that she enters it, complete with music, drugs, abuse, and shame. When she finally finds the strength to leave him, she soon meets Carlos Santana, already a Grammy-winning rock superstar, and though she tells herself to wait, immediately begins a relationship with him.

Over three decades as Santana's wife, she'll experience the world of a touring musician, a meditative life with an oppressive guru, unfaithfulness by Santana, three children, near financial ruin, and the exhilaration of starting a successful business. Most important, she discovers the emergence of a sense of herself, and what it means to be true to that self.

Santana unfolds her story without judgment of the person who made the decisions she did. Santana the writer allows Deborah's understanding of each part of her life to emerge slowly and naturally. As much as is possible when looking back over time, we get a sense of what she felt and experienced as it happened, and then what she did with it.

Her writing is sensual - the feel of skin, the sense of light, music's blood-level rhythm describe her life intimately. It is also sensible - she looks back on her life not as isolated incidents adding up to something, but as stages of becoming. She describes herself with honesty, and fills the page with adjectives and adverbs, leaving nothing to chance in how we will understand her world. It's not a celebrity memoir at all, but a deep look at what this woman, who happens to be married to a famous man, is made of.

This is an excellent read if you want to learn what is like to be part of a famous musician's life-with all its perks and pitfalls.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Seeing Stars and the People That Love Them, August 8, 2005
By 
What a wonderfully, powerful love story filled with spiritual transformation. The Sanatana's 35 year relationship is an unusual chronicle or friendship, love,family, and loyalty. I could not put it down; from the first page I was hooked! It filled my Sunday afternoon with such unexpected joy and elation... it has made me look at mo own relationship with an artist very, very differently. Now I can see with eyes of unconditional love and non-judgement and compassion and most of all... understanding.
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Inside This Book (learn more)
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
space between the stars, magic woman
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Deborah Santana, Sri Chinmoy, New York, San Francisco, Mill Valley, Dipti Nivas, Bill Graham, Aunt Ginger, Los Angeles, Santana Band, Saunders King, Sly Stone, Aunt Nita, Bay Area, Golden Gate Bridge, Black Expo, Bel Air, Annam Brahma, Cal State, One of Sri, Dominguez Hills, Uncle Judge, Katagiri Roshi, Aunt Bitsy, Parsons Boulevard
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