Sandra Cisneros
Author
of Caramelo talks
with Robert Birnbaum
 Posted:
December 4, 2002
Copyright 2002 by Robert Birnbaum
All photos by Red Diaz / Duende Publishing
Print this interview.
Writer, poet, performance artist Sandra
Cisneros was born in Chicago. She is the only girl in a family of
seven of a Mexican father and Mexican-American mother. She received
an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and has worked as a teacher
to high-school dropouts, a poet-in-the-schools, a college recruiter
and an arts administrator. She has received, among other awards
and fellowships, the Lannan Literary Award, The American Book Award
and a MacArthur Foundation fellowship. Sandra Cisneros has published
Bad Boys, My Wicked Wicked Ways, Loose Woman, House on Mango
Street, Hair/Pelitos and now Caramelo. She lives in San
Antonio, Texas.
Robert Birnbaum: Tell
me what it's like to spend such a long time on one project?
Sandra Cisneros: On writing one book? For
me, it didn't seem like it was that long. It just seemed like I
had put my head down for a few seconds and then when I looked up
nine years had passed. (laughs) I think everyone around me was more
impatient and more exasperated than I was. I was just working and
I work very slowly, so sometimes I lose touch with reality because
I am so absorbed in another world. I think that people had to physically
call me and say, "The towers had fallen." Or this and that is going
on in the world—I really was in another world. Often times
when I wanted to be social everyone was asleep. [I was in] My own
world, when they wanted to be social, I had to apologize and avoid
people. I think it's changed my life and my whole way of socializing—the
way I was before this book and the way I am now—it's almost
as if there are two different people. I was the kind of person that
was very social and liked to be with an entourage and have lots
of parties and have people around me. And now I find I am much more
satisfied seeing people one-on-one. I avoid crowds, and I get really
plagued by people as if they are bees or something. I am talking
about my friends. I can only handle them one at a time.
RB: Can you connect that to anything in particular?
SC: I think some of that is the intensity
of the experience of writing this book. Also the experiences I lived
through in the nine years: buying a house…
RB: Fighting with the City of San Antonio
about the color of the house… [Because Cisneros' house is in
an area designated as a historical district, the color she chose
to paint her house became a matter of controversy]
SC: Yeah, having to become this public figure
where people you don't know come up to you and talk to you at events.
And the MacArthur [Fellowship], my father's death, all these took
a toll and shaped me in some way, and I feel as if I traveled and
became someone else.
RB: I asked you the question about the length
of time that it's taken you to write this book. Your answer was
very specific and individual. Which leads me to think that we are
given to generalizing this process of creating or writing something
and in doing that we lose some understanding of it. When you describe
it, it seems very natural, "You put your head down and then it was
over."
SC: Right. I was making something completely
new, too. I wasn't writing the House on Mango Street. If
I was writing that I could have gotten that done in a couple of
years. I didn't want to do something I had done before. I really
wanted to expand and push myself and do something that I didn't
have a model for. I didn't even know how to make what I wanted.
I just knew that I could see it in my mind's eye for a flash of
a second and then I was in the dark. So I was mainly in the dark,
experimenting with this book.
RB: There is a place in the book where the
main character and narrator says, "Art can keep you from dying."
You've alluded to being in the dark on this book for long periods.
What if you had been unable to figure it out? That is, how to write
it or finish it. What might of happened then?
SC: I felt like throwing the book away several times. But
don't think I would have. Every book takes you to the terror, that
terrible place of possible failure. That seems to be a pattern for
me when I work on things that are pushing me to my limits. When
I wrote the story "Eyes of Zapata", which I thought was my best
story in the collection, which hardly anyone ever mentions in the
Woman Hollering Creek book—that took me to the same
process of writing little bits and pieces in the dark and stumbling
about and not knowing who's speaking, or what am I going to do with
this? I feel it's important, but I don't know where I am going with
this and then finally at the end, all the pieces fitting together
as if I had planned it from the outset. And I had, but in a very
subliminal way. In this book it was the same. Except for nine months,
it was nine years.
RB: Let's talk about the disclaimer at the
beginning of the book. One might almost think that you didn't want
to take responsibility for what was in the story. But that certainly
isn't true…
| I
didn’t want to do something I had done before. I really
wanted to expand
and push myself and do something that I didn’t have a
model for. I didn’t
even know how to make what I wanted. I just knew that I could
see it in my mind’s eye for a flash of a second and then
I was in the dark. So I was
mainly in the dark, experimenting with this book.
|
SC: No, I actually wanted to admit that characters
were based on real people. But I wanted to also say and be truthful
that it's based on real people but it isn't autobiography. Many
books that you read, they have those disclaimers that say that,
"None of the events and none of the people are based on real life
and so on…" Well, I don't believe that. I think that as human
beings many people touch us, especially people we love the most
and we can't help but do character sketches when we go to our art.
I felt that I was taking some real filaments of my life, some real
memories, but I was embroidering from that and departing from that
and leaping…especially plot. So much of the plot was invented.
Even if the characters were not. The characters were spun from real
memories and there might be some of the plot—the trips to Mexico
that were based on memory. The fight scene in Acapulco, the move
to San Antonio, a lot of that was my pure imagination.
RB: In weaving this story you include what
seems to be factual information about Mexican history, Mexican-American
history. Some seem not quite believable. For example, you describe
conquistador Hernando Cortez, when asked by the king about the topography
of a particular part of Mexico, crumpling up a piece of paper and
tossing it on a table. That was a wonderful description but when
I thought about I was skeptical about whether that was a real event.
It seemed too dramatic.
SC: He did.
RB: (Laughs)
SC: According to the story, to my source,
that's what he did to describe the landscape of Oaxaca. I was so
startled. I found it in one of these old travel books, these guides
to Mexico from the '30s, '40s and '50s. It was a footnote.
RB: What I am speaking to, is how you discern,
in a novel what is fictitious and what is factual? Did Elvis Presley
really…
SC: See there is another one. Elvis Presley
really allegedly said that. (laughs)
RB: Presley was quoted, when he was making
a movie in Mexico, as saying he wouldn't kiss a Mexican?
SC: Yes, the newspapers reported that he
said that. Whether he really said that is subject to debate. But
was there a big national boycott? Yes! Did everyone get up and get
pissed? Yes! That is true.
RB: Your chronology of Mexican history at
the end of Caramelo is wonderfully idiosyncratic.
SC: Wacky (laughs)
RB: Referring to Betsy Ross as an upholsterer.
SC: She was!
RB: Well, okay, but in American history texts
she is commonly referred to as seamstress.
SC: I found that some where she was actually
an upholsterer. Yeah, amazing. It was the first mention I ever saw
of an upholsterer in American history. When I saw that I said, "Oh
my God. Here's someone who had the trade my father had." You
never read about upholsterers. So I was thrilled.
 RB:
The whole idea of translation fascinates me. This book was simultaneously
published in Spanish and English. There are places in Caramelo
where you make a point of saying that a word doesn't quite translate
well into English. You wrote this book in English. What happens
in the Spanish edition?
SC: There is a beautiful essay that is only
in the Spanish translation, about the process of translating the
work. Liliana Valenzuela was my translator—a very, very good
translator because she is also a poet and a fiction writer and a
performance artist in her own right—she's from Mexico City
and she moved to Texas. I couldn't have asked for a more qualified
person—plus she's an anthropologist. So she had this great
store and wealth of information. She tried to find parallels, to
things, where if something was in Spanish she might put English
in the text, so you would get the sense of the two languages.
RB: In the edition of Caramelo I have
there is a poem at the end of the book that doesn't appear in the
finished copy.
SC: You are talking about the final chapter,
which is a pilon chapter. Pilon is what the grocer
gives you as a little token of thanks. He throws in some extra of
whatever it is you bought. Or a toy or candy. Just to say thank
you for patronizing her store.
RB: Hmm, the groceries in Boston don't do
that.
SC: Well, the Mexicans do. And it's called
pilon and it's not a word used in any other country an that
sense. It's a Mexican term. In your galley copy, we also had a song,
it isn't a poem. I keep seeing poems mentioned when I read reviews
but they are songs. And we didn't get the copyright clearance for
that song, unfortunately. So we had to drop that lovely title and
mush the pilon explanation. That's why you don't see it there. Which
is too bad because I sure liked that title "Chile Naughty Bitter
Sweet" but that's a literal translation from one of the lyrics.
RB: You read the
audio version of Caramelo.
SC: I sure did. It was a whole week's worth
of work.
RB: I listened to nine chapters today and
your Tarzan yell is just great.
SC: Laughs.
RB: And your rooster crowing…
SC: Yeah. Kee-kara-kee-ki-ra-kee. (laughs)
Yeah, I'm a real clown so I can allow myself to do this like if
it was radio drama. I had a good time.
RB: It sounds like it. There are a good number
of writers who before they let go of what they have written, they
have to read it out loud. That's when they have a sense of the accuracy
of what they've written. Is that true for you?
SC: Well, I'm a poet by training. Plus you
have to remember I was also reading these on the road, during the
nine years. I was never ensconced in my home just writing. I was
sent out on book tours. My European publications came out and I
was in Europe twice during that time. I was out there promoting
Loose Woman. So there was always things for me to do. Not
to mention lectures and speaking engagements, that never stopped.
[It] Wasn't as if I was Emily Dickinson.
RB: I am tossing away the picture of you
isolated in a garret for nine years.
SC: No, no, not all. It wasn't until the
MacArthur came that I actually started hunkering down. I also had
to take off nine months when my father was ill and my father passed
away. He was diagnosed with terminal cancer. So the MacArthur gave
me the luxury of stopping everything and being with my father during
that time. Afterwards, I got sideswiped by the purple house incident.
That was like another thing and it was right on the heels of my
father passing away and that took time. And then I could say no
to some of the engagements and not worry about money and stay home
and finish the book.
RB: I wanted to talk a little more about
the audio version. I listened to it after I finished Caramelo.
To me, while it is an unabridged version, I think one experiences
the audio so much differently that it is almost a different thing.
As the movie is to the book…
| Many
books that you read they have those disclaimers that say that,
"None
of the events and none of the people are based on real life
and so on…" Well, I don’t believe that. I think
that as human beings many people touch us,
especially people we love the most and we can’t help
but do character
sketches when we go to our art. |
SC: What's missing is the songs. If we had
put the songs in there that's a whole other copyright thing we'd
be getting into. It's so complicated with songs and who owns the
rights to them. So I wasn't allowed to sing them. Too bad.
RB: Was it always your plan to do the audio
text version?
SC: Yeah. I have done the tapes of my other
works and I like performing it. I perform these works in front of
people so I always see them as performance too.
RB: I assume that the manuscript was completed
before you did the audio. Were there things you wanted to change
when you read for the tape?
SC: I found some typos. I wanted to make
changes in the performance after I made the performance. Because
I had to think quickly because I was reading some chapters that
I had never read to the public. The ones that I had read out loud,
I knew how to read, but the ones I was reading for the first time,
it was like driving in the dark. I wished I had more range so I
could do the woman in the iguana hat with her voice like squeezed
lemon. And I didn't get that voice down. So those were challenges
for me.
RB: You're referring to woman that the grandfather
fell in love with?
SC: The sweetheart from the hot lands. She
had a voice like squeezed lemon. You know those Mexican woman that
have that that kind of—what do you call it, ronca. They
are kind of hoarse but in a very sexy way. Not hoarse deep, they
kind of wobble, their voices. I know what I mean when I hear that
voice. But I can't convey to you because I don't have the right
range in my voice. I'm not an actress enough to do that voice.
RB: Speaking of dalliances, was the character
that makes an appearance in the book that ends up dancing in Paris,
Josephine Baker?
SC: Yeah. I like Josephine Baker. I read
a lot of biographies and she kind of popped on the page and I thought,
"Oh, okay, we'll go this way." (laughs) I make some people intentionally
make cameos and some just pop up. When I went to my desk, on the
day that Senor Wences [ventriloquist famous for performing on the
Ed Sullivan Show] died, I knew that I was going to include him in
this story. I had to weave him into the plot because I thought he
was so wonderful and I didn't want people to forget him. Just like
I didn't want people to forget my father. He was part of my father's
time, part of that history and that generation. When I read his
obituary when I was having breakfast before I went to my desk I
was so sad. For one thing I didn't know he was still alive [he died
at the age of 103] I thought this man deserves to be included in
the novel. And then other heroes of mine, Maria Sabina and Josephine
Baker, made their way in because I admire them.
RB: Is it a Mexican cultural thing that Chicago
has two names?
SC: No Chicago doesn't have two names, it's
just that Uncle Old is vulgar. It sounds like two bad words.
RB: Being a gringo I didn't figure that out.
SC: That's all right, Uncle Old figured it
out for you. (laughs) I didn't really censor myself with this book.
I let myself go. When I read in front of audiences, there are many
children and I've had to look and eyeball the audience before I
read—in fact, the chapter on Senor Wences, I debuted that at
the beginning of the tour. I'd never read it out loud except in
the audio studio and my nieces and nephews were in the front row
and I thought, "What am I going to do, there are some four-letter
words in here?" So I announced that I would give the reading a G
rating and I dropped some of the four letter words and I missed
one. When a character came and threw a maldicion at another
character, I forgot about that one. It was the only time while I
have been performing that I fell out of character and I said, "Oops,"
looked at the kids and apologized and then kept going. When I was
writing House on Mango Street I was aware that it was going
to be used in the middle schools and high schools and I wanted that
audience. With this book I didn't want to put limitations, I didn't
think it was going to be used in schools.
 RB:
That's surprising. That you were self-censoring…
SC: I wasn't censoring myself. I saw it in
a different light. When I wrote House I saw it as wanting
to get past the censors but I didn't think of the children as being
the censors. I thought of the administrators so I wanted to open
I to as many ages as possible. The way that that I wrote things
was in a subtle way. Although I didn't shy away from difficult subjects.
With this one I felt that my audience wasn't children. They weren't
in the forefront when I was writing this.
RB: You have an audience coming to listen
to you that has children in it. Do you feel that the children will
be adversely affected by some of the 'bad' words?
SC: No, they know those words already. I
feel as if they are coming to a reading and I didn't put out any
kind of advertisement that there was going to be strong language.
I need to give G rating to my reading so I just dropped some words
or I substituted. School kids will laugh if they hear bad words.
But I don't want to shock their teachers or get them in trouble,
so I'll substitute words.
RB: That's very thoughtful and considerate.
SC: I want to make sure—this the Mexican
part of me—that you want to caer bien, you want to be
nice. You don't want to make waves. They have gone to a lot of trouble
to bring the children.
RB: That reminds me of what I think may be
startling information to many Americans, that Mexicans might actually
think that Americans are rude.
SC: (laughs) That was what was so much fun
for me. To hold up mirrors: from the Mexicans to see themselves
from the point of view of the Mexican-Americans. Mexicans-Americans
to see themselves from the point of view of the Mexicans, Americans
as seen by Mexicans, all those mirrors that get refracted.
RB: You have been on this book tour since
the beginning of October. How has your presentation been received?
SC: If you are Mexican, they feel like crying
because they feel no one has written about this and they are emotionally
overwhelmed. I get a lot of weepers. If you are of another culture,
say Persian or Chinese or African-American, you will come up surprised
and say, "Well, I'm Persian but this could have been my family."
People from very different cultures than mine see themselves in
this book. Even the most gringo gringo will, when I see them
in the audience, will be laughing at the appropriate moment. I think
there is a place for them even though it is specifically about a
culture that is unlike my listeners. There is a place for them to
identify with. You know, you make it so specific that it does that
little paradox of becoming universal. We are seeing examples of
that with My Big Fat Greek Wedding where suddenly you have
a specific culture but everyone can watch it and identify with it.
RB: More men than women? Women than men?
SC: No, Men and women and children and young
people and old people and all different kinds of people. It's been
really surprising. Sometimes when I write a certain book it brings
a certain audience. Loose Woman suddenly made me aware of the gay
public that I draw. With House on Mango Street it's young
people. Woman Hollering Creek, maybe more women. But this
one I see men and women of all ages. It could be that they are being
ushered in by the other books. My readers are as diverse as any
group you will ever see. Something that booksellers always tell
me. That they are always surprised at the kind of people that come
to my readings. That they are such a mix of ages and colors. It
looks like people spilling out of an elevator (laughs).
RB: Do you have any sense of your place in
the literary establishment?
SC: I am always curious about that because
I don't know. I'm just in my house writing away. Plus I'm not in
New York; I'm in the Southwest, which alienates me even further
from either coast. I always wonder. Maybe you can tell me. I always
wish I could understand because I do know that sometimes I am put
together in these writers' events and I don't know how other writers
see me or how the business looks at me. I hope I will be looked
upon as a writer on the level of Eduardo Galeano or Elena Poniatowska
or Dorothy Allison or Studs [Terkel], people I admire. I hope I'm
not just looked as a writer that is popular but as a writer of literary
value.
RB: How do you view the publishing business?
SC: I don't know. I don't see it that often.
I see it at these big chunks of time. It's certainly very different
than it was the last time I was in New York. A lot has changed in
the industry and what I feel is that everybody is much more conservative
and cautious than they were in the past. I am not watching it close
up. I am seeing it from such a distance, perhaps I am not the best
person to ask.
| I
think the erotic is very spiritual and I never see that spiritual
dimension when you look at collections of erotica. That’s
always missing for
me. |
RB: What makes you feel that it is much more
conservative?
SC: I think people are much more concerned
about money now. There aren't the big advances of the past. You
feel the sense of nervousness about the book industry. It's not
like before. Not that I knew very much about what it was like because
I was a newcomer to it, but I get that feeling that people are more
conservative in their book choices and what they are going to publish
and what's a sure sell. As opposed to—just like in the economy—a
sense of luxury and sense of risk taking ten years ago.
RB: Is it through the various writers conferences
and seminars that you have contact with other writers?
SC: I am not in touch with other writers.
I don't have very much contact with other writers. I don't get invited
to these things or I don't go to them. I hate panels. I speak to
librarians and to conferences of English teachers. That's what I
do: teachers and librarians. And high school kids. I go out and
meet the kids. I don't hang out with writers. It's very rare. Even
when do these book fairs as I'm going to do next month, I come in
and I go out. I can't hang around with lots of people these days
because I am hypersensitive. So when I am around a lot of people
or a big roomful of people I get almost autistic. I get overwhelmed
and really tired. So I don't like being around large groups.
RB: I didn't write a novel and I feel the
same way.
SC: That happens to you too, huh? You know
why? I think because the kind of work you do is so intensive with
people that perhaps whether you realize it or not you are just absorbing
everybody's buzz. I feel like I am in a box of bees when I am in
a room with lots of people and I'm just looking for the door. I
find myself getting more and more agoraphobic as time goes on. Part
of it is because people's perception of me has changed. I haven't
changed. The MacArthur suddenly made people look at me and "ching
ching." How can she help me? So I feel like a lot of people are
the chupacabras [a blood-sucking mythical monster, supposedly part
goat], they all come, trying to suck your blood, trying to find
how can you help them? Or they look at you as somehow you have the
secret to the light and you are going to be able to pass it on just
by waving your hands over them. In the past I was very open and
very generous and I found that it just exploded in my face. A lot
of people weren't there for me when I needed them. So I have become
a little shell shocked. Subsequently almost paranoid and frightened
of people now. Maybe I'm losing out in meeting some marvelous people
but I am doing the only thing I can to save my spirit. I really
felt—especially when I was finishing this book—so open
and overwhelmed by people. I am still trying to recover from that.
RB: Are you planning for a vacation?
SC: I took two vacations already. When I
handed in the book I thought, "I have to do something for myself.
My spirit is dying and what would I like." And I remembered that
nineteen years earlier I had been in Venice and I had always wanted
to go back but I didn't have time or money. And now I had the money
and the time. So I went to Venice. Then in May I took my niece for
her quiencenera—I had promised her for her fifteenth
birthday we could go to any city she wanted but she had to wait
until I finished the book. So we went to Paris. It was fun to go
with my niece, who is now eighteen.
RB: I wanted to get back to few anecdotes
and details in Caramelo. The saying that "Spanish is to speak
to God and English to dogs," where does that come from?
SC: It goes further. It's a Mexican saying.
It says something like, "French is to speak to a woman, Spanish
is to speak to God and English is to speak to dogs." That's the
way it goes. I don't know who made that up. Probably a Spaniard
or a Frenchman.
RB: And was it the case that people in Mexico
named their dogs Wilson, after President Woodrow Wilson who sent
US troops into Mexico?
SC: Yes. My father, when we were growing
up, kept wanting to name our dog Wilson. And we would say that was
an awful name. I didn't understand the historical significance until
I grew up and did my history.
RB: It was interesting that Mexico's Golden
Age coincided with the Great Depression.
SC: Because of the war a lot of the imports
that would normally have come from countries in the war, the production
stopped so Mexico benefited as did Argentina. And when you have
a flourishing of the economy you have a flourishing of the arts.
That's when you had Siqueros and Diego Rivera and all those people
creating a national identity for Mexico.
 RB:
How much are you thinking about what you are going to be doing in
the future?
SC: I have lots of projects always bubbling
on the back burners and I go to the one that is boiling over first.
RB: What is a sign of boiling over?
SC: It means that it's the thing I can't
not write about. It's the thing I want to explore next. There is
actually a book of vignettes that had little seedlings that I used
to have to force myself to write down the idea and put it aside,
when I was writing Caramelo. There is a little book of erotica
I want to write called Infinito.
RB: Infinity?
SC: Infinity. Infinito. I want write
about those little erotic moments that take you to another spiritual
dimension and it might just be a bowl of flowers…that you never
see in a sex museum. Things that take you into that infinity symbol,
that little lying down sleeping eight. Sometimes it doesn't have
to do with people at all. I think the erotic is very spiritual and
I never see that spiritual dimension when you look at collections
of erotica. That's always missing for me. So I thought, "I'll write
my own."
RB: How far ahead do you look?
SC: Well, I've been thinking about this book
since I was in Munich with Woman Hollering. All along while
I was writing Caramelo. I would just write ideas—jot
them down on little pieces of paper—and stuff them in an envelope
and that what Infinito is right now. Concepts for tiny vignettes.
I was thinking of Book of Embraces. Something really small
with drawings and I'd like to incorporate my own drawings into this
book.
RB: Is that a form? Did Eduardo Galeano take
his Book of Embraces from something else?
SC: I don't know what Galeano was influenced
by. But I was influenced by Borges.
RB: But is there a genre?
SC: Cronicas. There is a Latin American
term called 'cronicas', chronicles. And Clarise Lispector, the Brazilian
writer, explores them too. But they are not necessarily small. Some
of Clarise Lispector's cronicas go on for pages.
RB: You made reference to the Book of
Embraces.
SC: The Book of Embraces is my model
because Galeano makes them very succinct as if they were poems.
And that's what I want to do. That's my inspiration. The Book
of Embraces is for Galeano his favorite book. And I want to
do a book that's for me because Caramelo was for my father
and for the immigrants. Woman Hollering was for the community.
House on Mango Street was for my students, This book is for
me. And I haven't written a book of fiction that is for me. My poems
are for me. But not a book of fiction so I thought that this would
be for me.
RB: Considering that you have been quoted
as saying writing Caramelo nearly killed you, what is the
prospect of you writing another novel?
SC: It'd be like if you had a four-day childbirth
and people saying, "Are you going to have another kid?" (laughs)
Well, not soon. I don't know that I'd want to or that I could. I
could never write one like this again. Everything that I write comes
when it wants to, out of its own need and it dictates its form.
I don't say, "I am going to write a novel." I didn't know this was
going to be a novel. I thought it was short story. I never know
what something is going to be until it emerges from the womb and
you see the crown of its head and then you see it pushing its way
up. So in my life if another book wants to be born it's not for
me to choose.
RB: Such is the intersection of art and commerce.
You do something and it has commercial success and there is pressure
to duplicate.
SC: People wanted me to do that with House.
I could do Mango Street II or Mango Street III, like
films. But why? I already did that. For me it's important to do
something else. So I've done this novel and maybe some other novel
will demand itself. But right now I can't see it because I'm so
tired. I'm still exhausted from giving birth to this one.
| Everything
that I write comes when it wants to, out of its own need and
it dictates its form. I don’t say, "I am going to
write a novel." I didn’t
know this was going to be a novel.
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RB: Are you interested in making movies?
SC: With this one, yeah. Not with my other
books. With my other books if people had wanted to take individual
stories from Woman Hollering possibly. People wanted to do
Mango Street, but it doesn't have enough there to do the
kind of film I would want to put my name on. I'd have to fill in
the gaps or give it up and have faith that they wouldn't mess it
up. This one is very cinematic I think the ideal venue would be
a telenovela, not a two hour feature. Wouldn't that be great?
A US made telenovela styled on the Mexican ones that would
have beginning and an end…
RB: Have you watched TV lately?
SC: No. Yeah, I do when I am on the road.
I watch pay-per-view and HBO. I thought that something like that
could be marketed as telenovela that we could export to Mexico.
Wouldn't that be fabulous?
RB: And the Spanish translation of Caramelo
has been published simultaneously. In Spanish-speaking countries?
SC: In Spanish speaking countries it won't
be available until next year with a different publishing house.
But it's the same translation by Liliana Valenzuela.
RB: Who is your editor at Knopf?
SC: The fabulous Robin Desser. She was with
me for nine years on this project. Incredible!
RB: How important is your editor to the way
you work?
SC: I don't get comments from my editor immediately.
With Robin we waited until I had the pieces there and when I was
at the point of absolutely being lost and then helping me to bring
them together. I work more closely with my personal editor, Dennis
Mathis, who is a friend of mine, who has mentored my fiction all
along. I rely on Robin too. I'm showing it to Robin, to Dennis and
three other readers too. Plus my agent and two other friends for
fact checking and all kinds of things. And then I just take into
account all their comments and try to come up with something that
I hope satisfies everybody, but especially me.
RB: Your agent, Susan Bergholz, seems to
be influential in the lives of her writers.
SC: Oh yeah, other people don't have the
relationship that we have with Susan. There is only one Susan. I
liked Susan from the beginning because she said it wasn't about
the dollar. That we were going to sell books to the best place that
a book could go to and if that meant a small publishing house or
less money…that we weren't looking for the big swimming pool.
We more interested in doing something that really had a sense of
taking the work out there and it making a change in the world. So,
she's a very political person. I don't think she could work with
anyone unless her heart and soul was in it. I think it's extraordinary
even among agents to hand something in and then go to sleep and
wake up and there are [her] comments on your email. (laughs) Or
before email I would get a fax back with comments all over the pages
I had just handed in before I went to bed. Nobody does that for
you, not even your friends.
RB: Are you affected by the conservative
turn in the publishing business?
SC: I'm already established. I feel it and
I hear it. You can feel the nervousness.
RB: There is a current wave of young writers
that seems to be selling books. Am I missing the new young Latino
writers?
SC: There is a whole slew of young women
writers that have first books out. But making a big splash?
RB: Mention some names please.
SC: Angie Cruz who came out with Soledad.
And Frontera Street by Tanya Maria Barrientos. There is a
whole bunch books by new authors. I have to write them down. I don't
know these writers. Maybe because they are women writers—I'll
see a write up in the Latino press but not in the mainstream press.
I don't know why that is? Do you think that they were happy to jump
on Junot Diaz because he is a man?
RB: I'm tempted to say that you should ask
the people who did the jumping. Well, there was the Vanity Fair
"Three Amigas." And Dagoberto Gilb didn't get much attention
when he was first published.
SC: Dago has certainly gotten respect in
literary quarters.
RB: One last minor question. Was it the case
that John Steinbeck wanted a Mexican actor Pedro Amendares to play
Zapata and Elia Kazan wanted Brando?
SC: Steinbeck wanted Amendares, who played
in The Pearl. A magnificent actor, he would have been fabulous
as Zapata. But the director wanted Brando and that's what he got.
He looked so bad in that movie it was laughable. But you know stuff
like that—I know all this trivia and I don't know where I get
it and sometimes you'll ask me where I got it from and I can't even
remember. But I thought it was a good place to put it was in the
footnotes (laughs). I ran away with the footnotes. Some people enjoyed
the footnotes. Some people didn't want the footnotes there. But
you don't have to read the footnotes. I think no matter what you
do you can't please everybody. You have to ask yourself, "Did I
do what I set out to do?" as I said when I set out I didn't know
what I wanted to do. I just knew that I didn't want to write a typical
linear novel. When I was in the audio studio for the tape and I
finished speaking the last line of the book and I came to the end.
I really felt—I said, "Okay you don't have to worry about what
the reviewers or what anyone else says because you really wrote
this book for your father and you really wanted to pay homage to
his time and his history—all those people from that generation
are dying or are dead—I felt that I tried my very best, that
at this time in the history of the planet, this is the best I can
do. That's all you have to ask from yourself. That it's the best
you can do and that you did it without any ego involved and that
you did it for somebody else. That's the best you can do. So I'm
happy.
RB: Good. Good.
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