Book of the Month
ANITA DE MONTE LAUGHS LAST
Author: Xochitl Gonzalez
Publisher: Flatiron Books
ISBN-10: 1250786215 / ISBN-13: 978-1250786210
SUMMARY:
REESE’S BOOK CLUB PICK • New York Times bestselling author Xochitl Gonzalez delivers a mesmerizing novel about a first-generation Ivy League student who uncovers the genius work of a female artist decades after her suspicious death
A Most Anticipated Book of 2024: TIME, The Washington Post, Refinery 29, Barnes & Noble, Marie Clare, Real Simple, Entertainment Weekly, LA Daily News, LitHub, The Millions, TODAY.com, HipLatina, Book Riot, Kirkus,and more!
“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.” ―The Washington Post
“Anita De Monte Laughs Last by Xochitl Gonzalez asks some big questions, like who in art or history is remembered, who is left behind or erased and WHY. I have goosebumps just talking about this story.” ―Reese Witherspoon
1985. Anita de Monte, a rising star in the art world, is found dead in New York City; her tragic death is the talk of the town. Until it isn’t. By 1998 Anita’s name has been all but forgotten―certainly by the time Raquel, a third-year art history student is preparing her final thesis. On College Hill, surrounded by privileged students whose futures are already paved out for them, Raquel feels like an outsider. Students of color, like her, are the minority there, and the pressure to work twice as hard for the same opportunities is no secret.
But when Raquel becomes romantically involved with a well-connected older art student, she finds herself unexpectedly rising up the social ranks. As she attempts to straddle both worlds, she stumbles upon Anita’s story, raising questions about the dynamics of her own relationship, which eerily mirrors that of the forgotten artist.
Moving back and forth through time and told from the perspectives of both women, Anita de Monte Laughs Last is a propulsive, witty examination of power, love, and art, daring to ask who gets to be remembered and who is left behind in the rarefied world of the elite.
About the Author:
Xochitl Gonzalez is the New York Times bestselling author of Olga Dies Dreaming.
Named a Best of 2022 by The New York Times, TIME, Kirkus, Washington Post,
and NPR, Olga Dies Dreaming was the winner of the Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize
in Fiction and The New York City Book Awards. A Reese’s Book Club Pick, her new
novel, Anita de Monte Laughs Last, was published on March 2024 with Flatiron Books.
As a staff writer for The Atlantic, she was recognized as a 2023 finalist for the Pulitzer
Prize in Commentary. A native Brooklynite and proud public school
graduate, Gonzalez holds a BA from Brown University and an MFA from the Iowa
Writers’ Workshop.
Website: us.macmillan.com/books/9781250331533/anitademontelaughslast
Conversations Book
VANISHING MAPS
Author: Cristina García
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 0593534743 / ISBN-13: 978-0593534748
SUMMARY:
From the acclaimed author of Dreaming in Cuban, a follow-up novel that tracks four generations of the del Pino family against the tumultuous backdrops of Cuba, the U.S., Germany, and Russia in the new millennium
“A beautiful novel: hilarious one moment, haunting the next.” —Chris Bohjalian, author of The Flight Attendant and The Lioness
Celia del Pino, the matriarch of a far-flung Cuban family, has watched her descendants spread out across the globe, struggling to make sense of their transnational identities and strained relationships with one another. In Berlin, the charismatic yet troubled Ivanito performs on stage as his drag queen persona, while being haunted by the ghost of his mother. Pilar Puente, adrift in Los Angeles, is a struggling sculptor and the single mother of a young son. In Moscow, Ivanito’s cousin Irina has become the wealthy owner of a lingerie company, but she remains deeply lonely in the wake of her parents’ deaths and her estrangement from her Cuban heritage. Meanwhile, in Havana, Celia prepares to reunite with her lost lover, Gustavo, and wonders whether age and the decades spent apart have altered their bond.
Cut off from their Cuban roots, yet still feeling the island’s ineluctable pull, Ivanito and his extended family try to reimagine where—and with whom—they belong. Over the course of a momentous year, each will grapple with their histories as they are pulled to Berlin for a final, explosive reunion.
Set twenty years after the events in Dreaming in Cuban, Cristina García’s new novel is an epic tale of family, devotion, and the timeless search for home.
About the Author:
Cristina García is the author of eight novels: Dreaming in Cuban, The Agüero Sisters, Monkey Hunting, A Handbook to Luck, The Lady Matador’s Hotel, King of Cuba, Here in Berlin, and the forthcoming Vanishing Maps (Knopf, July 2023).
Additional publications include two Latinx anthologies (Cubanísimo: The Vintage Book of Contemporary Cuban Literature and Bordering Fires: The Vintage Book of Contemporary Mexican and Chicano/a Literature); books for young readers (The Dog Who Loved the Moon, I Wanna Be Your Shoebox, and Dreams of Significant Girls); and a collection of poetry, The Lesser Tragedy of Death.
García’s work has been nominated for a National Book Award and translated into fifteen languages. She’s the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Writers’ Award, a Hodder Fellowship at Princeton University, and an NEA grant, among others. García has taught at universities nationwide.
Recently, she was a Visiting Professor at University of San Francisco and is now Resident Playwright at Central Works Theater in Berkeley.
Website: cristinagarcianovelist.com
Facebook: Cristina
Instagram: @cristina_garcia_novelist
