Barcelona

Beginning in September 1991 journalist Schweid ( Catfish and the Delta ) spent a year in Barcelona, and his reporter's notebook provides a consistently interesting mosaic of the city. As the title suggests, one theme is Spain's historically tortured relationship with Jews, culminating in their expulsion in 1492; he explores their present-day isolation in such a Christian country and probes tensions between the Moroccan and Argentine factions of the community. Another theme is sex: Schweid tracks the demimonde of transvestites and transsexuals in a country where sex was for a long time strictly regulated, and explains how Franco-era tourism opened the gates to more permissive mores. Schweid devotes relatively little attention to the Olympic preparations, but his sketches of Barcelona's many facets and characters provide a fuller portrait of the city: the struggles of immigrant workers, the absurdities of rent control, the shifting policies toward drug use during the AIDS epidemic, the intricate etiquette of food shopping. The book's only disappointment is that he provides too little information about himself and his role in the tableau. (Jan.)