Podcast Summary: All Of It – Xochitl Gonzalez on ‘Anita de Monte Laughs Last’ (Get Lit)

Date: April 2, 2024
Host: Khushan Avadar (in for Alison Stewart)
Guest: Xochitl Gonzalez
Producer/Interviewer: Jordan Loft
Venue: Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library, NYC (Get Lit Book Club Event)

Episode Overview

This episode features a vibrant conversation between author Xochitl Gonzalez and producer Jordan Loft, recorded live for the WNYC “Get Lit” book club event. The discussion centers around Gonzalez’s new novel, Anita de Monte Laughs Last, which reimagines the tragic story of real-life Cuban American artist Ana Mendieta. The novel interrogates questions of art, memory, erasure, artistic gatekeeping, and feminist legacy through the intertwined stories of two women—artist Anita de Monte (inspired by Mendieta) and art history student Raquel in 1990s academia.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Inspiration Behind the Novel: Ana Mendieta’s Legacy

• Discovery of Ana Mendieta:
  • Xochitl learned of Mendieta’s work during her senior year at Brown, through a peer and the lack of minority-focused content in her curriculum.
  • Quote: “There was something of Ana Mendieta’s in there… it was this crazy revelation in my entire curriculum that was focused on Western art that was almost all just kind of like white males.” (04:12, Gonzalez)
• Erasure and Self-Discovery:
  • Her realization about the absence of nonwhite art shaped her creative path and fueled the novel’s thematic focus on representation and historical silencing.

2. Creating Anita and Raquel: Fictionalizing and Translating Experiences

• Real Events to Fiction:
  • Anita is inspired by Mendieta, whose husband Carl Andre was acquitted of her death (now mirrored in characters Anita and Jack Martin).
  • Raquel, the other narrator, emerged first, embodying the author’s own confrontations with cultural translation and professional exclusion (esp. in TV writing).
• Literature as Counter-Narrative:
  • The decision to write Anita in first-person was a turning point, stemming from a “spiritual encounter” with the 'ghost' of Mendieta, giving her narrative agency.
  • Quote: “The ghost was like, okay, but you have to use my voice… Now it’s not a person that something happened to, now it’s a personality.” (12:16-14:07, Gonzalez)

3. Artistic Gatekeepers and the Limits of Inclusion

• Gatekeeping in Academia and Art:
  • Raquel’s struggle to study marginalized artists echoes how academic and gallery systems favor established white male creators.
  • Lack of historical/scholarly precedent is wielded against scholars of color or non-mainstream art.
• The "Art History Girls":
  • Segregation and microaggressions play out not only institutionally but socially among students, perpetuating exclusion.
  • Quote: “The lack of academic history is often used as a way to diminish something… That’s how underrepresented communities continue to exist as quote unquote enigmas.” (09:41, Gonzalez)

4. Structure and Craft: Voice, Character, and Complexity

• Narrative Choices:
  • Anita’s sections are in the first person—raw, immediate, and unapologetic—while Raquel and Jack’s are in the third, reflecting distance or legacy.
  • Quote: “When you go to get an MFA, that’s the thing that they tell you is good craft. But good craft and good feeling aren’t the same.” (13:00, Gonzalez)
• Challenging the ‘Perfect Victim’ Trope:
  • Anita is complex, not always likable (“I want them to remember what a fabulous, annoying bitch I was”), paralleling the flattening of victims of domestic violence in public memory.
  • Gonzalez wants to honor real women by showing their messiness and contradictions.
  • Quote: “It’s frankly like a little bit of a dishonor to the person when you make them perfect… That for me keeps her more real.” (15:44, Gonzalez)

5. The Physicality of Art in Literature

• Describing Visual Mediums on the Page:
  • Xochitl draws on her art history background to vividly render the artwork in her novel, aiming for descriptions that reveal character and move story.
  • Jack’s art feels “cool,” Anita’s “visceral,” Nick’s “derivative” and humorous.
  • Quote: “Finally I can say I used my undergraduate major… all those papers describing paintings and sculptures were not for naught!” (17:23, Gonzalez)

6. Campus, Identity, and Feminism in the 1990s

• Autobiographical Elements:

  • Brown University’s highly segregated campus experiences, with first-gen, working-class, and minority students existing in overlap as scholars and activists.
  • Reflection on ‘90s feminism as both empowering and restricted, filtered through corporate and performative models.
  • Quote: “We were always double existing… as an activist and as a student.” (19:40, Gonzalez)

• Expanding Selves, Complicated Growth:

  • Raquel’s journey is about occupying space and negotiating her evolving identity, sometimes at the cost of familial closeness.

7. Domestic Violence, Toxic Relationships, and Grateful Dependency

• Raquel and Anita’s Relationships:
  • Both women are ambitious, pioneering, and end up in toxic partnerships in part due to their loneliness and need for recognition.
  • Quote: “There’s a line where Anita says: ‘He found something in her heart and opened it up, and it was like a sail and he was the wind.’” (24:04, Gonzalez)
  • Relationships are written as they often are, not as we wish them to be.

8. Blurring Fact and Fiction, Artistic Responsibility

• Response to Ana Mendieta’s Family:
  • Gonzalez acknowledges the family’s frustration at not having oversight, but frames the novel as a work of homage, not exploitation—meant to empower, not flatten.
  • She positions herself as entering a larger conversation, as art should.
  • Quote: “If I had to ask them for permission, then do I have to ask Carl Andre’s estate for permission?” (26:52, Gonzalez)
  • The novel is also about her own experiences as an artist and a woman.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On erasure in the art world:
  “It was this bizarre revelation that concurrently made me feel astounded and stupid… It didn’t occur to me that we have a whole lineage of art.” (04:51, Gonzalez)
• On giving Anita narrative power:
  “She’s like, that puta. She’s raving mad. And she’s like, you should be mad, too… She gives her agency… It’s not a person that something happened to, now it’s a personality.” (13:00-14:07, Gonzalez)
• On artistic gatekeeping:
  “Commercial fear is also always used to not change things or not take a risk, to silence somebody.” (11:00, Gonzalez)
• On survivors of violence:
  “I wanted… to create a character, to really see women… Then write women as complicated and sometimes unlikable.” (16:14, Gonzalez)
• On creative responsibility:
  “My intention was so to feel respect for this, like, tragic end, but to give it a continuation… Anita de Monte is really, truly equally as much about my frustrations as a creator out there in the world.” (27:01-28:55, Gonzalez)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Inspiration, Discovering Ana Mendieta: 03:37 – 06:39
• Creating Raquel and Anita, Ghost Encounter, Narrative Voice: 06:39 – 14:12
• Gatekeeping, Art World Structure: 08:55 – 11:58
• Writing Women’s Complexity, Perfect Victim Discussion: 15:10 – 17:02
• Describing Art in Literature: 17:23 – 19:25
• Campus Life, Identity, and Feminism in the ‘90s: 19:25 – 22:49
• Toxic Relationships and Loneliness: 24:04 – 25:57
• Blurring Fact and Fiction, Responding to Mendieta’s Family: 25:57 – 30:04
• Audience Q: Social Exclusion and Art History Girls: 30:16 – 33:41

Audience Engagement & Real-World Resonance

• Audience questions elicited powerful testimony from Gonzalez on classism and exclusion in elite academic spaces.
• Gonzalez emphasizes that “pain collage”—transposing real emotional truths into fiction—is the source of her most disturbing or memorable scenes.
• She reiterates that discrimination and erasure are still current, not merely historical.

Tone & Language

Gonzalez balances scholarly analysis, humor, and candor. Her tone is direct and heartfelt; the conversation is animated and often moving, especially regarding women’s agency and the complexities of memory and voice.

Final Thoughts

This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in art, justice, feminist literature, or the challenges of visibility and legacy for artists of color. Gonzalez’s novel—and her reflections—challenge listeners to reconsider whose stories are told, who gets to tell them, and the power in giving voice to those the system seeks to silence.