Review by Booklist Review
Gonzalez's (Olga Dies Dreaming, 2022) sophomore outing deserves a mouse on her doorstep in gratitude. Anita, her spirited spirit protagonist, learns that mice make a nice appreciation gift from a wise reincarnated bat she meets in the Ceiba tree where she is spending her afterlife after her suspicious death in 1985; "artists . . . could become bats. But only for as long as their art was serving its purpose." Anita's murderer, husband and famed minimalist artist Jack Martin, has done all he can to squelch what's remembered of her art and her voice. In the late--1990s, Puerto Rican undergrad Raquel Toro begins a prestigious internship via affirmative action, making her ripe for manipulation and exploitation by her overprivileged boyfriend. Gonzalez weaves these three perspectives and two converging time lines together within the art worlds and academia of New York City, Providence (Brown University), Cuba, and Spain in four parts, "Falling," "Parties," "Visits," and "Retrospectives." Anita's passionate, thrilling voice--"Fast! Fast! Fast!"--drives the story lines to a felicitous collision. Inspired by and dedicated to artist Ana Mendieta in light of her tragic death, this is a brutal but ultimately heartwarming and certainly thought-provoking novel of Latinx magic, family, and feminine power.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Gonzalez (Olga Dies Dreaming) takes inspiration from the mysterious 1985 death of Cuban American artist Ana Mendieta for this astute account of an art history student who researches the circumstances of a similar tragedy. Award winning Cuban artist Anita de Monte, who is married to successful minimalist artist Jack Martin (a stand in for the sculptor Carl Andre), mysteriously plummets to her death from the window of their 33rd-floor apartment in New York City. Gonzalez then jumps to 1998, when third-year Brown University art history student Raquel Toro is on the brink of starting her senior thesis on Martin. Raquel begins a coveted summer internship with Belinda Kim, an acclaimed Asian American feminist curator opposed to the "art for art's sake" philosophy trumpeted by Raquel's white thesis adviser. Under Kim's tutelage, Raquel learns of de Monte's mysterious death, propelling her research on Martin in an unexpected direction. Her own life begins to resemble de Monte's when she falls for a Brown classmate, a wealthy white up-and-coming artist with ties to the New York art world. Just as de Monte played second fiddle to Martin during their marriage, Raquel's boyfriend downplays her research, and both relationships fray due to the men's deceitful and manipulative behavior. In addition to the intrigue generated by Raquel's search for answers about de Monte's death, Gonzalez crafts excoriating and whip-smart commentary on the art world's Eurocentric conceptions of beauty and the racism faced by first-generation students of color. This is incandescent. Agent: Mollie Glick, CAA. (Mar.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
An undergraduate at Brown University unearths the buried history of a Latine artist. As in her bestselling debut, Olga Dies Dreaming (2022), Gonzalez shrewdly anatomizes racial and class hierarchies. Her bifurcated novel begins at a posh art-world party in 1985 as the title character, a Cuban American land and body artist, garners recognition that threatens the ego of her older, more famous husband, white minimalist sculptor Jack Martin. The story then shifts to Raquel Toro, whose working-class, Puerto Rican background makes her feel out of place among the "Art History Girls" who easily chat with professors and vacation in Europe. Nonetheless, in the spring of 1998, Raquel wins a prestigious summer fellowship at the Rhode Island School of Design, and her faculty adviser is enthusiastic about her thesis on Jack Martin, even if she's not. Soon she's enjoying the attentions of Nick Fitzsimmons, a well-connected, upper-crust senior. As Raquel's story progresses, Anita's first-person narrative acquires a supernatural twist following the night she falls from the window of their apartment --"jumped? or, could it be, pushed?"--but it's grimly realistic in its exploration of her toxic relationship with Jack. (A dedication, "In memory of Ana," flags the notorious case of sculptor Carl Andre, tried and acquitted for the murder of his wife, artist Ana Mendieta.) Raquel's affair with Nick mirrors that unequal dynamic when she adapts her schedule and appearance to his whims, neglecting her friends and her family in Brooklyn. Gonzalez, herself a Brown graduate, brilliantly captures the daily slights endured by someone perceived as Other, from microaggressions (Raquel's adviser refers to her as "Mexican") to brutally racist behavior by the Art History Girls. While a vividly rendered supporting cast urges Raquel to be true to herself and her roots, her research on Martin leads to Anita's art and the realization that she belongs to a tradition that's been erased from mainstream art history. An uncompromising message, delivered via a gripping story with two engaging heroines. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
