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All Of It with Alison Stewart
Xochitl Gonzales on 'Anita de Monte Laughs Last' (Get Lit)
00:33:26
We air highlights from our March Get Lit with All Of It book club event with author Xochitl Gonzales.
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- [00:02]
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- [00:05]
Sochiel Gonzalez
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- [00:29]
Sochiel Gonzalez
Let's go. Listener supported WNYC Studios.
- [00:49]
Khushan Avadar
You're listening to all of it on wnyc. I'm Khushan Avadar in for Alison Stewart, who's out on medical leave. This hour we're airing highlights from our March get lit with all all of it book club event. So in just a bit, you're going to hear a special performance from Caridad de la Luz, the poet, singer, rapper and executive director of the famed Nuyorican Poets Cafe. But first, let's get this started with author Sociale Gonzalez in the new novel Anita Damonte Laughs Last. Author Socio Gonzalez drew inspiration, inspiration from a real life tragedy to tell a story about what art gets valued, remembered and exhibited and why. One protagonist is Anita Damonte, a Cuban American artist whose star is on the rise. Her photography and body art are disturbing, profound, feminist and challenging to the majority white art world in the 1980s. But her career stalls after she begins a romantic relationship with the famed minimalist sculptor Jack Martin, who seems unwilling to support Anita's art. And their volatile relationship comes to a tragic end when Jack pushes Anita out of a window, killing her in 1985. The other protagonist of the novel is Raquel. She's an art student at Brown University in 1998 who's never heard of Anita Damonte until she starts researching Jack Martin for a thesis project. And the more Raquel learns about Anita, the more she wonders whether her own life and her own relationship with her artist boyfriend Nick might be mirroring Anita's own. The novel is based on the real story of Cuban American artist Ana Mendieta, who died in 1985 after falling out of a 34th story window here in Greenwich Village. Her husband, the famed sculptor Carl Andre, was acquitted of her murder. He died earlier this year. Actually. Sochill Gonzalez joined All of it producer Jordan Loff for a Get lit event in front of a sold out crowd at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library. Here's Jordan's conversation with Xochil about her new novel. Anita Damonte laughs last.
- [03:19]
Jordan Loft
So you've spoken before about how this novel was inspired by Ana Mendieta, a Cuban American artist who fell to her death from the 34th floor of a building in Greenwich Village in 1985. Her husband, sculptor Carl Andre, was acquitted for her murder, but he actually died earlier this year.
- [03:37]
Sochiel Gonzalez
Yes.
- [03:38]
Jordan Loft
When did you first learn Ana's story? Because I have to admit, I was not familiar until I read this book.
- [03:43]
Sochiel Gonzalez
Oh, yeah. I learned about Ana Mendieta when it was my senior year of college, and I had been like, you know, they don't have any required classes at Brown, and so I just took a lot of what I liked, which, I don't know was the point, but I took a lot art history and art classes, and I kind of. The minority community, like, the, you know, bipoc community at that time was, like, microscopic. Like, really, like, really microscopic. So we all knew each other, and it was like people knew I was like, the art person. And a friend that had graduated gave me a copy of this book on Caribbean art, and she'd already been in, living in New York, whatever. And then I would, like, it was like this weird revelation, and there was something of Ana Mendietas in there, but there was a lot of artists. And it was like this crazy revelation in my entire curriculum that was focused on Western art that was almost all just kind of like white males, like, you know, European white males, American white males. Like, it was really.
- [04:48]
Jordan Loft
Oh, diversity.
- [04:49]
Sochiel Gonzalez
Yes, exactly.
- [04:49]
Jordan Loft
Europeans and Americans, like, yeah.
- [04:51]
Sochiel Gonzalez
So isn't that amazing? And it was like this bizarre revelation that concurrently made me feel, like, astounded and stupid. Like, I was like, wait. I was like, it didn't occur to me that we have a whole lineage of art and art history. And it was like. Because it just was never given any space, right? And so. And I think I was just kind of wandering around ranting about this book, and then, like, an art teacher, like, kind of a hip to it art teacher, was like, oh, you've got to look up Ana Mendieta. And in that way, it played out a little bit like the book, because it was like, you know, the art department and the art history department were together, but then at odds constantly, like, those. Those clowns. Like, it's like. So she was like, of course they're not teaching them, like, teaching her there. And I just remember being, like, horrified. And then I was just having this conversation with Garidad. And then it was kind of this time in the 90s where I think, especially in New York. We would kind of be hanging out at New York and, like, there was a lot of teaching each other about our own history at that time, on campus, off campus, like in the city, because we realized, like, there was a lot that we were not being taught in the classroom. And so then it was interesting how you would just sort of then finally encounter more of her work or whatever. So she kind of lingered. And then fast forward 20 something years and now I'm in Iowa City. And she had been sent on the Peter Pan, you know, Operation Peter Pan, which is the Catholic Church and the CIA trying to save Cuban children from communism.
- [06:19]
Jordan Loft
Right.
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Sochiel Gonzalez
And sending them, airlifting them to America, where they spread them around the Midwest in orphanages and foster homes. And. And when I got to Iowa, I was like, oh, my God, this poor little girl, like this 12 year old girl just like dropped here. And it just sort of stuck with me in a completely different way. And that, I think, was. That was kind of around the time that the book came to me. Yeah.
- [06:40]
Jordan Loft
And when that idea came to you, did Raquel come with Anita or did she come later?
- [06:45]
Sochiel Gonzalez
No, Raquel came first.
- [06:47]
Jordan Loft
Wow.
- [06:47]
Sochiel Gonzalez
Because I was concurrently trying to work on turning my first book into a TV show. And it was very difficult. Like, I think Latinos might be the most underrepresented group on television, particularly compared to our population size. And it's like, really like you're trying to do cultural translation and with, you know, executives that don't speak that cultural language at all. And I remember feeling like I wanted to bang my head against a wall after one particular call. And I suddenly, like, somebody said something about art and commerce and it reminded me of a textbook title. And I found myself transported back into my art history classroom. This is deep in the pandemic. And I felt like, oh, my God, like, mad. Like, I felt really mad, like, because I thought, how would this be different? Had work like hers and art been told that it was valid? How would that change the way that we see things? How would that change the way that I fight in these calls? Like, or don't. You know, don't fight, but can persuade, you know, whatever. And I just felt like I had been robbed. And the idea was sort of born always that it was kind of about the way in which this one. This one individual relationship and the loss impacts Raquel, who sort of represents like a whole generation of people.
- [08:06]
Jordan Loft
Yeah, it was interesting. Reading your book was making me think about another book that I actually had to read for the radio show, a work of nonfiction. The Author's name is Bianca Bosker and the book title is get the Picture. A Mind Bending Journey among the Inspired Artists and Obsessive Art Fiends who Taught Me how to see. And she is investigating the world of fine arts today.
- [08:27]
Sochiel Gonzalez
Yeah.
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Jordan Loft
And it was uncanny how little has changed even since your book is set in the 90s in terms of what voices are valued. And there was something that she highlighted in the book that really stuck with me was she was interviewing a gallerist who said something along the lines of, I wouldn't want to exhibit or work with an artist who I wouldn't want to hang out with. And that's so coded in so many ways.
- [08:49]
Sochiel Gonzalez
It's so coded. Yeah.
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Jordan Loft
What did you want to explore in this novel about artistic gatekeepers and who decides?
- [08:55]
Sochiel Gonzalez
Yeah, well, and also, I think how little it changed is like, I think I really wanted to sort of show how gatekeeping and the ways in which these, like, sort of kind of codifications, like, it's like, you know, in the academic sense. In Raquel's storyline, she's studying the artist Jack Martin, who is kind of based on the, you know, Carl Andre esque character and like, and person. And he studies now because he studies him. She studies him, but he studies him because it personally meant something to her. Now she's sort of stuck studying him because it personally meant something to this other guy. Right. Like, and, like. Right. And so, like, but then when she says, I'd like to study this other thing, he's like, well, there's not enough scholarship for that.
- [09:41]
Jordan Loft
Right.
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Sochiel Gonzalez
And like, the lack of academic history is, like, often used as a way to diminish something as being a legitimate field of study. But then that's how communities, like underrepresented communities, continue to exist as, quote, unquote, enigmas. Right, right. Like, so it's like these sort of excuses that get set up to invalidate areas of inquiry. And then in the art world, you sort of see because it's not really that different, but it's like. Like there's so much. It's, you know, it's a pseudo business and that it's done basically based off relationships.
- [10:15]
Jordan Loft
Yes, that was very clear in this book, too.
- [10:16]
Sochiel Gonzalez
Yeah. And I think you can tell, like, you know, there was a piece in New York magazine not that long ago about, like, how it's relationships that drive what goes into people's collections. And it's like, people's judgments about artists and what their, like, actions and opinions are that judge if they. And they. They can withhold who they even then sell to and who, you know, like, it's like, it's very much about the Persona of not just the artist of the owner. Right, right. And like, and the mutual kind of prestige that goes back and forth. And it's like, so if you were from a group, like, at one point, they're having the Anita de Monte's, like, first solo show opening, and they invite two male artists to come and talk about women's art.
- [10:55]
Jordan Loft
Yes.
- [10:56]
Sochiel Gonzalez
And like, but. But by the way, that was taken from, like, an actual, like, research thing that happened.
- [11:01]
Jordan Loft
That's unbelievable.
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Sochiel Gonzalez
And it was at a feminist art gallery. Right. So it was like, like. And so, like, you know, and they were like, you know, it was like, well, we don't know that you'd be a Dr. Like, you're a third world woman artist. Who knows if people will come out for that? And it's like. And like, the fear. And like, commercial fear is also always used as sort of a justification to not change things or to not take a risk and like. Or to silence somebody. Right. And like, you know, and so it's like, you know, this is a big. A big gain and like, for, you know, for, you know, in this moment. And she's like, well, I'd like to have a gain for forever. Right. Like, why does it have to be in a passing measure of time? Right. Like, it's like. But I think that those are still the kind of, like, justifications used. And I think I could. What I was sort of trying to do was show how for. To an individual, it makes a lot of sense. It doesn't feel like there is part of a system. Right. But done in repetition over the course of time, it is a system. And when you have power, that is a system.
- [11:59]
Jordan Loft
Exactly.
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Sochiel Gonzalez
Yeah.
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Jordan Loft
And you mentioned being silenced. Someone who really won't be silenced is Anita.
- [12:05]
Sochiel Gonzalez
Oh, yeah.
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Jordan Loft
And I was interested in the book that Raquel's voice and Jack's voice are written in the third person.
- [12:11]
Sochiel Gonzalez
Yeah.
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Jordan Loft
But Anita is always first person.
- [12:13]
Sochiel Gonzalez
Yes.
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Jordan Loft
How did you arrive at that decision?
- [12:16]
Sochiel Gonzalez
I had a sort of spiritual encounter with a ghost. Oh. And I say more. I was told that Ana Mendytz's ghost lived in this place, and I went to visit with it, and I said, I would like to kind of borrow your story in order to give voice to the way the experience felt. And the ghost was like, okay, but you have to use my voice. And then I felt that that made the most. I was like, I immediately understood what it meant. I'd Already written, like, two thirds of the book.
- [12:48]
Jordan Loft
Oh, wow.
- [12:49]
Sochiel Gonzalez
And it was, like, all in third person. Because, by the way, it was all in third person because when you go to get an mfa, that's the thing that they tell you is good craft. But, like, good craft and good feeling aren't the same.
- [13:00]
Jordan Loft
Totally.
- [13:01]
Sochiel Gonzalez
Because the book was so depressing when it was all written in the third person. Because no matter how close, like, I write pretty close third, like, where it's, like, as close to writing first as you can get with third. But, like, it's definitely. You're still like, oh, you're having judgment. In that tiniest bit of distance, you're having judgment. And that judgment is sadness that this person is dead. And then the second that you go to first now, she was like. She's like, that puta. Yeah, she's mad. Like, it's her feeling. She's not. She's not sad about it. She's. She's raving mad. And she's like, you should be mad, too. And she's, like, showing you and telling you, personally, this is what I would have done. And this is. Now that I have a little power. Like, I'm going to use my afterlife power, and I'm going to show. I'm going to show you. And, like, I'm not going to let anything go. And so she gives her agency. It was like it embodied her with agency. And I didn't. I wouldn't have thought to do that had I not had that experience. And I am so grateful for it, because then it was like, it's not a person that something happened to. Now it's a personality.
- [14:07]
Jordan Loft
Absolutely.
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Sochiel Gonzalez
It's not a personality remembered either. It's a personality in present.
- [14:12]
Jordan Loft
Yeah. Yeah. And I really felt that. I think there was one chapter that ended with a couple of lines that were just repeated, like, I want to be alive. I want to be alive.
- [14:21]
Sochiel Gonzalez
Yeah. She, like, she. She goes back to torment the woman that sort of tormented her.
- [14:26]
Jordan Loft
Yes.
- [14:27]
Sochiel Gonzalez
And she just, you know, she has this ability to come back in a different format, and she's just, like, picking it. It's like everything that she hated about this woman, she's like, you know, she's like, being perfect. Being perfect. And then she's like, but what do you want me to do? You know? She's like, he's alive and you're dead. And she's like, but I want to be like, what do you think? She's like, what do you think? I don't know. I'm dead. Right, Right. Like, it's like, I know I'm dead. And I think it was like, I think it enabled me to access emotion. But, you know, a lot of it was. Because in a lot of ways, it's a book about domestic violence, and it's a book about dysfunctional relationships. And it's like, I think so often when a woman in particular is the victim of violence, they get flat. And this was a way to give her dimension.
- [15:11]
Jordan Loft
I wanted to ask about that, actually, because I loved Anita. I loved reading her, I loved her voice. But you did get the sense that she wasn't always the easiest person to get along with.
- [15:21]
Sochiel Gonzalez
Yeah, no.
- [15:21]
Jordan Loft
And I think at one point she even says, like, I want them to remember what a fabulous, annoying bitch I was. Yeah, something like that. And you're right that when we think about domestic violence, especially victims of domestic violence, they get flattened. And sometimes I think we have this tendency to want to make them seem perfect, like a perfect person, a perfect victim, whatever that means. How did you want to challenge that with Anita's character?
- [15:45]
Sochiel Gonzalez
Well, I think it's frankly, like a little bit of a dishonor to the person when you wake them perfect, because it's not like you can say, oh, my God, she would drive me crazy. Like, I had a friend and she was so paranoid about turning 40, and she unfortunately passed at 39. And I remember, like, we, like, every year on her birthday, we'll like, text and we'll be like, she'd be so mad. She'd be 46. But it's like we remember how irrationally paranoid about aging she was. And it's like, it was so annoying in life. And now it's like this thing that we missed that she was annoying. Right? Like, and I think that that for me keeps her more real than just being like, oh, like, you know, And I think I didn't want to hide that she was difficult, and I didn't want to hide that some of the dysfunction of the relationship. Again, this also is true. Like, the dysfunctional relationship ran in a two way street. The violence was one way, but it ran in a two way street, you know, And I think that that felt important to illustrate. And I don't know, I think to me it felt like a bigger. To create a character, to really see women. Like, if we're gonna write like feminist literature. And I really don't mind being categorized that way at all. I think it's like, then write women as complicated and sometimes unlikable.
- [17:02]
Jordan Loft
Something I know also from trying to produce segments about Art is that it's really hard to describe something visual like art. Like visual art or photographs or sculptures in a format that's not visual.
- [17:15]
Sochiel Gonzalez
Yeah.
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Jordan Loft
So how did you. What was your approach to getting the descriptions of Jack's art, of Anita's art, of Nick's art, to feel vivid and real for the reader on the page?
- [17:23]
Sochiel Gonzalez
Well, I think, you know, finally I can say I used my undergraduate major.
- [17:31]
Jordan Loft
Very few of us get to say that. That's a rare honor.
- [17:36]
Sochiel Gonzalez
It only took 23 years, and I finally really used that undergraduate major. All those papers describing paintings and sculptures were not for naught.
- [17:47]
Jordan Loft
Yeah, there you go.
- [17:49]
Sochiel Gonzalez
It was really great. I had a harder time describing the architecture at Brown because I managed to never take an architecture class. And I ended up ordering a history of architecture on Brown's campus book to try to learn what things were called. But, like, no, I felt like that scene where you just see Nick's art. Nick's art was hilarious to describe because it was like, I would think about somebody and then I'd be like, what would be the best derivative version of that? And then I just imagined what it was, and it was, like, so fun to kind of dumb things down, like, 100%. To anybody that's familiar with Providence, that is a sister city to Venice, one of his art pieces is all white gondoliers, and he calls it the Great Gondoliers. It's like these big sculptures. So I just. I had a lot of fun with that. But, like, I think it felt important to me, though, that the way in which they'd be described somewhat like, evoke either character or move story ahead. Right. So, like, I think it was important that Anita's art feel really visceral. It was important that Jack's art feel really cool. Right. And I think, you know, and I think there's one part where he walks, you know, her teacher, Raquel's teacher, walks out of the building. He exits through Nick's long white shaft. Right. Like. And it was, like, made by a sculpture, but, like, it still was a long, white shaft. So, you know, like, what. What are these?
- [19:17]
Jordan Loft
Can we say that on the radio?
- [19:18]
Sochiel Gonzalez
Yeah, yeah, yeah. About a sculpture?
- [19:21]
Jordan Loft
Yes, of course.
- [19:21]
Sochiel Gonzalez
About a portal. A portal created by a sculpture. Yes. Yeah.
- [19:26]
Jordan Loft
Let's get to Raquel. We haven't talked about her much yet. We're going to fast forward. So we've been in the 80s talking about the 80s. We're going now to the 90s. You were a student at Brown as well?
- [19:35]
Sochiel Gonzalez
Yes.
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Jordan Loft
What was something about Your experience there that you wanted to capture through Raquel's experience.
- [19:40]
Sochiel Gonzalez
Oh, my gosh. First of all, I was really fixated. Well, first, I have to say, like, it was. I think I needed to explain to a reader that was really both precious and also insidious that it was a deeply segregated experience. Like, because most of the minority students were first gen, a lot of them were first gen. A lot were lower income. So where we worked, the kinds of jobs we worked, the majors that we did, like, most people were in, like a pre professional or trying to help enroll in ethnic studies to give us ethnic studies, you know, like, it was like. Like, like we were like. Like we were always double existing. Like, it's like, like you were existing as an advocate and as a student. You were existing as an activist and as a student because you're like, well, we can't stay with us being like, 6% of this class, like, forever, you know, like, and, like, it was a lot of, like, collective action around that stuff and, like, seeing US curriculum. And so I really wanted to sort of highlight the separateness. But I also wanted to talk about feminism and the bizarre time that was for feminine. I ordered a ton of ladies magazines before from that time when I was working on this, and I texted a group of my girlfriends, and I was like, we're lucky we got out of the 90s alive. Yeah, like, it was like, they were like. It was like, like, you want to be powerful, Put on a suit. Like, it was like. It just like these, like, very weird performative ideas of, like, empowered meant that were totally performative. And I thought it was important to sort of put that in a context, because I think it's harder for younger women now to understand how new feminism was and how it kind of came with here's ways to be a woman that's empowered while still being very appealing to a man. Like, right. Like, that was kind of 90s feminism. Yeah. Yeah.
- [21:27]
Jordan Loft
It was interesting, too. Reading it, I felt that Raquel both had many parts of herself that she had to suppress when she was at Brown, but also parts of herself that opened up for the first time when she was there. And I wondered what you wanted to explore about that dichotomy. Like, there's part of me that I have to hide here, but I'm also getting a new exploration of myself for the first time.
- [21:47]
Sochiel Gonzalez
Yes, I think that is completely it. I think there was also a little bit of pain in that and part of why I made sure to write her family into the story, because her growth feels to her mother in particular, like all growth is a growing away and both the difficulty explaining the reality of her day to day and also this sort of inherent wedge that this paranoia that your growth means growing away and the recognition that it does, like, to some extent. And so she is learning all these things, you know, like there was an alternative ending to the book where it's her going to campus dance for her own commencement and just how at ease she feels there and like helping, you know, like making her mom feel comfortable there. And it was a little bit too sweet of an ending. But I imagine that existing as a thing that happened and that was like her coming of being able to take up space. I feel her whole journey is kind of like I'm learning to take up space in spaces that I didn't originally feel comfortable in.
- [22:50]
Khushan Avadar
You're listening to get lit producer Jordan Loft's conversation with author Sochiel Gonzalez from our March Get Lit Book club event. We spent the month reading her novel Anita Laughs Last. We're going to hear more of that conversation and plus some questions from the audience after a quick break. So hey, stay with us. You're listening to all of it on wnyc. I'm Kushina Avadar in for Alison Stewart. Let's keep going. Airing highlights from the march Get Lit with all of it book club event with author Sochiel Gonzalez. We spent the month reading her novel Anita Damonte Laughs Last. Our sold out audience had some really good questions for our author. We're gonna hear a few of those in just a minute. But before we get to that, here is more of get lit producer Jordan Loft's conversation with Social Gonzalez.
- [23:55]
Jordan Loft
Raquel and Anita are two incredibly creative and intelligent and powerful women and they both find themselves in these toxic relationships.
- [24:04]
Sochiel Gonzalez
Yeah.
- [24:05]
Jordan Loft
And they can't seem to fully extricate themselves or even recognize fully at first. This is wrong. Why do you think they both end up in this kind of situation?
- [24:15]
Sochiel Gonzalez
I think that when you are ambitious and you are trying to navigate your way down a path that nobody forged for you, there's a certain amount of loneliness that comes with that and isolation. And I think that they meet this other person and there's a part of them that feels recognized and feels understood or related to. They get a humor, they get a joke, they feel less alone. And then it's like that thing of like, I don't wanna feel alone. And that can be addictive in its own way. And, you know, and in both cases, there's this a line where Anita says Like, he. He found something in her heart and opened it up, and it was like a sail and he was the wind. Like, it was like, you know, and I think it's like she had been living this small life and he made it bigger. And in both cases, it's like, I think that they just didn't know how to get there. Cause nobody had forged that path. And this person does walk them down a little bit. And there's a certain amount of gratitude, too, that's like, thank you for doing this, but now you're killing. Like, you're kind of killing me. Like, actually, like, right. Like, yeah. I think Anita calls Jack, like, a well marked bottle of bleach that she keeps drinking from. Right. Like, and it's like, yeah, like. And so I think that in both cases, it's a little bit of isolation, though, and gratitude, and it's like, well, but this person helped me see this. Like, and it's hard to walk away from that.
- [25:39]
Jordan Loft
Yeah. And it feels like almost, especially in Raquel's case, like a. A point of entry into a world that she didn't feel she had access to before.
- [25:46]
Sochiel Gonzalez
That's right. And I think I didn't want to write characters the way that we wished that people behaved. I wanted to write them more the way that they typically do. Yeah, yeah. And that felt important.
- [25:57]
Jordan Loft
Absolutely. I did want to take a moment to talk about the New York Times piece about Ana Mendieta's family. And I want to just read from my notes to make sure I get it right. Her niece, Raquel Cecilia Mendieta, who is the administrator of Ana's estate, expressed some frustration with your novel. She said that she felt like the book blurred the line between fact and fiction. And she told the Times that, quote, not only are we forced to relive her death over and over again, but we have no say in how she's being portrayed. But now, of course, Anita is not Ana.
- [26:30]
Sochiel Gonzalez
No.
- [26:30]
Jordan Loft
You don't have any legal obligation to get the estate's permission to write this book, to draw inspiration from her life and work. You dedicate the novel to Ana. So I just wanted to give you the opportunity to respond how you felt about what the family had to say. And also, what, in general, do you think is the responsibility of a writer, of an artist, of a creative, when drawing inspiration from someone's life?
- [26:52]
Sochiel Gonzalez
Well, first of all, I think, you know, there have been cases where people have done this with the intention to negatively portray a person.
- [27:01]
Jordan Loft
Right. Which is not the case here.
- [27:02]
Sochiel Gonzalez
The entire case here was to give this woman who'd been flattened by something a chance for that story to have a different ending, and an ending where they're empowered. Like, Anita really does have the last laugh in this book. Right. Okay. So I think I felt if I had to ask them for permission, then do I have to ask Carl Andre's estate for permission? I think that they'd have some things to say, and I think that they'd say, don't write this book. I'm not going to ask for permission to be inspired by somebody. One day I hope I see something. And it's like, I was inspired by Olga Dies Dreaming. I was inspired by Anita. The monthly laughs last. And I would have to say that is part of art, being in conversation and administering estate. You know, one day someone will be admitted. Somebody who loved me even as a kid and who's now an adult will administer my estate, and they will feel away. But I, as an artist is. It's like, you have to just do your art, you know, and, like. And I walked into it with my heart being set. I mean, I got on an international flight to talk to a ghost, like, because somebody told me to. My intention was so to feel respect for this, like, tragic end, but to give it a continuation. So I sort of feel at peace with it. And, you know, and I think it's. Yes, it's difficult, but, like, people relive her death in much more scandalized ways where it's not. It's just about much more exploitative ways. And so I sort of felt at peace with the way in which it portrayed. And Anita de Monte is really, truly. It's equally as much about my frustrations as a creator, like, being out there in the world, like, she was. So, like, that was such a part. And my frustrations in love and romance, like, being lived as a woman, like, as much as it was the base of this and what made sense to me reading about that story. So I, you know, I get it, but I also feel comfortable with myself. Yeah. Yeah.
- [28:56]
Jordan Loft
And. Yeah. And I think part of what you get from art that you don't get from a documentary or even say, you know, the family coming forward and saying, this is what our relative was like, is there's the artistic connection there because you're making a character and she's in the first person and she feels real to you as the reader. And I, I, as I said at the beginning, I had not heard of Anna before reading this book.
- [29:18]
Sochiel Gonzalez
I think that that was also my hope. Right. Is like, that people like you know, would then find her. And then. Because it's written like. And it's. And, you know, when I kind of made. I made up work. Artwork, even inspired by. But not exactly like, you know, like. Like, I'm like, then people can go to it and. I don't know, think of this person as a lived person and not a dead person. Right. I don't know. It's like, that's the difference between art and scholarship or art. And because I do that job, on my other side is, like, journalism. Right. And it was a forum to not have to hedge or say, well, it's alleged in a jury trial. It was like, no, here's how it felt when I felt I was pushed out of a window, and this is how it felt to go down 34 flights of stairs. And he thought it was an end, and it wasn't.
- [30:04]
Jordan Loft
Yeah. Well, for what it's worth, I'm very glad that you wrote it, so thank you so much. All right, do we have questions from our audience?
- [30:17]
Audience Member
Thank you. There was a lot to think about in both books, but specifically on Anita Dimontes, there was one scene where I actually had to stop reading for a little bit because it was like, this is very disturbing.
- [30:33]
Sochiel Gonzalez
Yeah.
- [30:33]
Audience Member
And it was a scene with Raquel and the art history girls, who. I thought that was a hilarious thing, because I think we all have art history girls in our lives. And the scene where she's bullied and, I mean, it was just harrowing. And I was just wondering if you could talk a little bit about particularly the art history girls, because I really found that disturbing.
- [30:54]
Sochiel Gonzalez
Yeah. You know, I had, like, a crazy incident happen to me my freshman year at college, and it was like, not art history girls. The art history girls loomed, you know, but they just sort of loomed. I'll see them at reunion this year, but they'll know who they are. But it was actually like, a much. I wouldn't even say more banal incident. But it was like, you know, sort of like just a dorm room issue, like a dormitory issue. And I remember going to a counselor and sort of making like, a. You know, the blatant. Like, this person's behaving really weird, and it's making people uncomfortable. And then, like, the next thing you know, it was like, I was locked in a room with the counselor and this. This kid, and they're, like, threatening to sue my family. And, like. And of course, I find out that they had known each other for, like, three generations. And, like, you know, like, giant wealthy family and, like, whatever. And. And, you know, you're like, my. I was raised by my grandparents, like. Right. My grandfather was, like, a retired custodian. My grandmother was a lunch lady. Like. And I'm like. They're like, sue. You know, you're just like, what? And I just. You know, the process of trying to get myself let out of that room was like a nightmare. And I just remembered that being the end of a shattered myth that we were all on equal footing or that it was the same experience for everybody there. And I felt it was really important to kind of borrow that feeling and put a different incident on it, you know? And I think the only hurtful thing that I'll say, you know, you put out a book, and it's challenging because, you know, people review it and, you know, people, like, leave Goodreads, and you're not supposed to go on there. But the only challenging thing to me was that one reviewer said that they didn't find that plausible. And I, like, almost threw my computer when I read that line and was like, you've got to be. I was like, it's plausible because it happens. And I know that it happened to other people. And the number of people that have already left their own reviews on Instagram or they've sent me notes, it was like something like this happened to me, and I knew that this had happened to other. You know, maybe not that dramatically, but where they were told, you took something from me and you had something, and you, I had something I wanted, and you took it from me. And it's like, I don't know. People don't like to feel that that could be true, but it is absolutely true. And I'd love to say that it doesn't happen anymore, but just a couple of years ago, I was helping somebody with their college something, and they were like, everybody says, I'm only gonna get in because I'm Puerto Rican. And it's like. I was like, oh, my God, we're still saying this. Like, I can't believe we're still saying this. A lot of, you know, a lot of this is like a pain collage. You just pill something from here and throw it over there. And, like, yeah, anyway. But, yeah, no, I mean, that was definitely taken from something that actually happened. Yeah.
- [33:42]
Khushan Avadar
That was get lit producer Jordan Loft's conversation with author Social Gonzalez from the march Get Lit with all of it book club event. We spent the month reading her new novel, Anita Damonte Laughs Last. And up next, we're going to hear a special performance from singer, rapper, spoken word poet and executive director of the famed Nuyorican poets Cafe Caridad de la Luz. Please stay with us.
- [34:09]
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- [34:12]
Sochiel Gonzalez
I'm in. Give me five.
- [34:13]
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- [34:36]
Sochiel Gonzalez
Let's go.
- [34:39]
Jordan Loft
Are you ready to get spicy?
- [34:41]
Khushan Avadar
These Doritos Golden Sriracha aren't that spicy.
- [34:44]
Jordan Loft
Maybe it's time to turn up the.
- [34:46]
Khushan Avadar
Heat or turn it down. It's time for something that's not too spicy. Try Doritos Golden Sriracha.
- [34:52]
Jordan Loft
Spicy but not too spicy.