Anita de Monte Laughs Last by Xochitl Gonzalez book review
In her acclaimed 2022 debut, “Olga Dies Dreaming,” Xochitl Gonzalez offered an unflinching examination of power and privilege as characters of Puerto Rican descent struggled to define their identities within the power structures of U.S. society. She tackles similar issues in her new novel, scrutinizing the racism, sexism and class elitism that dictate the hierarchy of the art world.
“Anita de Monte Laughs Last” unfolds in dual timelines and revolves around two Latina protagonists. In 1980s New York, a young Cuban artist, Anita de Monte, struggles against obscurity before finally having a breakthrough moment, only to die under suspicious circumstances. Overshadowed by her famous, domineering husband, Jack Martin, Anita narrates her story from the afterlife, refusing to be silenced in death as she was when alive.
In 1998, Raquel Toro, an art history undergrad desperately trying to fit into her Ivy League school, falls for Nick Fitzsimmons, an art student from a well-connected family. As she negotiates Nick’s privileged world and researches Jack Martin for her final thesis, Raquel discovers the story of Anita de Monte and sets out to give her the recognition denied to her in life.
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Although Gonzalez doesn’t explicitly state in her acknowledgments that “Anita de Monte Laughs Last” was inspired by the life of Cuban artist Ana Mendieta and her mercurial relationship with the minimalist sculptor Carl Andre, she dedicates her book “In memory of Ana.” The suspicious death of 36-year-old Mendieta on Sept. 8, 1985, divided the arts community into those who believed that Andre pushed his wife out of a window and those who defended him. Andre, who died in January at the age of 88, was charged with Mendieta’s murder but acquitted in a juryless trial.
Since Mendieta’s tragic end, she has become a symbol for Latina and feminist artists, and efforts have been made to keep her work and legacy alive. “Anita de Monte Laughs Last” is a compelling and beautiful homage to this overlooked artist and an uncompromising indictment of a White-centered, male-dominated establishment that silences some voices while elevating others.
Gonzalez deftly weaves together the two timelines, drawing parallels between the women’s experiences. Both Anita and Raquel navigate a world of prejudice and relationships with White artists who fetishize, objectify and diminish them. Through Anita’s first-person narration, Gonzalez grants the deceased artist a chance to speak for herself, vividly capturing her passion and determination, and her larger-than-life personality — loud, brash, borderline unhinged. Her sections are a striking contrast to Raquel’s quiet third-person narrative of history repeating itself as she begins to follow a path like Anita’s.
Some exposition-heavy passages slow the narrative at times, and the two storylines of Anita and Raquel take too long to converge, making the ending slightly rushed and leaving little space to explore Anita’s impact on Raquel. Nevertheless, the descriptions of the artwork, especially Anita’s, are vivid and raw, and Gonzalez authentically portrays the sensibilities of the artists, what their art means to them and their fears of irrelevance. She imbues the story with supernatural and spiritual elements, adding a hauntingly beautiful poignancy to the moments when Anita is grappling with the loss of her life and her art. In one of her most moving scenes from the afterlife, Anita screams: “But I want to be alive! I want to be alive! I want to be alive!”
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And we desperately want her to be alive as well.
In one of her bold moves, Gonzalez writes several chapters from the perspective of Anita’s husband. The choice pays off; through Jack, she gives us a closer look at how the erasure and marginalization of people of color happen, not to mention the insidious ways those in power manipulate and distort the history we learn, the stories we read, the art we consume. “I need you to make her go away. Make her art go away,” Jack says to his powerhouse agent. And she does.
“How many deaths can one soul endure?” Anita asks from the afterlife.
Although the novel takes place in the “lily-white art world,” the same dynamic is playing out in literature, TV and film, music, science, academia, and politics — spaces where people of color are often excluded. “Anita de Monte Laughs Last” is a cry for justice. Writing with urgency and rage, Gonzalez speaks up for those who have been othered and deemed unworthy, robbed of their legacy.
Reyna Grande is the author of the memoirs “The Distance Between Us” and “A Dream Called Home,” and the novels “Across a Hundred Mountains,” “Dancing With Butterflies” and “A Ballad of Love and Glory.”
Anita de Monte Laughs Last
By Xochitl Gonzalez
Flatiron. 352 pp. $28.99
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