Book excerpt: The Church of Tango is a passionate memoir of tragedy and adventure, lust and music, romance and tango, and above all, survival. A dancer all her life, she’d had to put it on hold while raising her artistic sons and caring for her dying husband. Now as she set her suitcase down on the ancient cobblestones of a Paris courtyard, she wondered—48 years old, 6,000 miles away from home, knowing no one—what was she doing? Each time disaster strikes her life, Cherie forges ahead, struggling to save herself from the wreckage by listening to the music and dancing, first in Los Angeles, then France, Mexico, Holland, and finally in the tango salons of Buenos Aires. This is not a “tango book,” but a story of survival that cuts across death, cancer, Alzheimer’s, loss of home and homeland and cherished heirlooms and possessions, loss of shared histories, of hope for one’s children, of hope for the future, of love. But it’s also about finding love and unexpected joy. And about listening to the music and dancing.