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A review by kristianawithak
Anita de Monte Laughs Last by Xochitl Gonzalez
5.0
Anita de Monte Laughs Last is an excellently rendered novel, ghost story, and scathing commentary on the art world. Xochitl Gonzalez looks at the erasure of the artist and how art can be silenced and forgotten. It is mystical and beautiful.
Vacillating between the dead Anita and all she carries with her from 1985 and beyond, and the living Raquel in 1998. Raquel’s story unfolds in art school. Studying the more famous and still living husband of Anita. In these sections, comparisons to Disorientation by Elaine Hsieh Chou can be made. The art school, the gatekeeping, the standard of upholding white artists. Raquel begins a relationship with a wealthy white artist and she begins her own erasure to fit into the world she’s strived to be accepted in.
The look at Anita’s work and the description of the pieces is beautiful and striking. I love books with art at the center. It’s a skill to make pieces come alive through words alone. To create masterpieces, fictional or otherwise, blossom in the brains of your readers.
Readers may or may not know of Ana Mendieta and Carl Andre. I wouldn’t have known of the real-life comparisons to Anita had I not read Clair Dederer’s Monster and her chapter and Carl and Ana. Viewing the book through this lens adds weight to the novel and its message.
I loved this book and immediately read Gonzalez’s Olga Dies Dreaming. Gonzalez is an author I am late to the party on but I will be reading everything she writes next.
Thank you, Macmillan and Netgalley, for the advanced audiobook.
Vacillating between the dead Anita and all she carries with her from 1985 and beyond, and the living Raquel in 1998. Raquel’s story unfolds in art school. Studying the more famous and still living husband of Anita. In these sections, comparisons to Disorientation by Elaine Hsieh Chou can be made. The art school, the gatekeeping, the standard of upholding white artists. Raquel begins a relationship with a wealthy white artist and she begins her own erasure to fit into the world she’s strived to be accepted in.
The look at Anita’s work and the description of the pieces is beautiful and striking. I love books with art at the center. It’s a skill to make pieces come alive through words alone. To create masterpieces, fictional or otherwise, blossom in the brains of your readers.
Readers may or may not know of Ana Mendieta and Carl Andre. I wouldn’t have known of the real-life comparisons to Anita had I not read Clair Dederer’s Monster and her chapter and Carl and Ana. Viewing the book through this lens adds weight to the novel and its message.
I loved this book and immediately read Gonzalez’s Olga Dies Dreaming. Gonzalez is an author I am late to the party on but I will be reading everything she writes next.
Thank you, Macmillan and Netgalley, for the advanced audiobook.