Xochitl Gonzalez is a staff writer at The Atlantic and the best-selling author of the novel Olga Dies Dreaming. Below, she recommends six books that influenced her latest novel, Anita de Monte Laughs Last, which is now out in paperback.
‘When I Sing, Mountains Dance’ by Irene Solà (2019)
‘Essential Labor’ by Angela Garbes (2022)
This compulsively readable book dives into the ways that parenting is a critical and yet undervalued form of labor. Though its primary lens is mothering, Garbes offers a poignant examination of womanhood writ large and how perceptions of mothering inform women’s perceptions of self. Buy it here.
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‘The Shining’ by Stephen King (1977)
Beneath the horror, King’s classic novel offers a surprisingly deep inquiry into a marriage. The Overlook Hotel in winter serves as a Gothic symbol of the confines of domesticity and the dangers of male insecurity and thwarted ambitions. Buy it here.
‘Widow Basquiat’ by Jennifer Clement (2000)
Clement’s memoir powerfully explores the chaotic domestic life of the painter Jean-Michel Basquiat and his on-and-off muse and lover, Clement’s friend Suzanne Mallouk. With sparse prose, the book beautifully examines the tumult, violence, and creative breakthroughs that can arise when two artists come together. Buy it here.
‘The Altar of My Soul’ by Marta Moreno Vega (2000)
Santería, a faith followed by millions around the world, has long been cloaked in secrecy and stigma. In this heartfelt memoir, Moreno Vega recounts her journey around and into the faith, offering up a story of personal growth and spiritual homecoming. Buy it here.
‘The Sense of an Ending’ by Julian Barnes (2011)
I loved this wrenching, sophisticated campus novel, which is as much about memory as it is about the specifics of things remembered. Barnes plays with his own recollections of being a college student in a love affair while unspooling the ramifications that a similar experience has on his narrator’s present. Buy it here.
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Democrats push for ICE accountabilityFeature U.S. citizens shot and violently detained by immigration agents testify at Capitol Hill hearing
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The price of sporting gloryFeature The Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics kicked off this week. Will Italy regret playing host?
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Fulton County: A dress rehearsal for election theft?Feature Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is Trump's de facto ‘voter fraud’ czar
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6 gorgeous homes in warm climesFeature Featuring a Spanish Revival in Tucson and Richard Neutra-designed modernist home in Los Angeles
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Touring the vineyards of southern BoliviaThe Week Recommends Strongly reminiscent of Andalusia, these vineyards cut deep into the country’s southwest
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Nan Goldin: The Ballad of Sexual Dependency – an ‘engrossing’ exhibitionThe Week Recommends All 126 images from the American photographer’s ‘influential’ photobook have come to the UK for the first time
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American Psycho: a ‘hypnotic’ adaptation of the Bret Easton Ellis classicThe Week Recommends Rupert Goold’s musical has ‘demonic razzle dazzle’ in spades
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Properties of the week: houses near spectacular coastal walksThe Week Recommends Featuring homes in Cornwall, Devon and Northumberland
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Melania: an ‘ice-cold’ documentaryTalking Point The film has played to largely empty cinemas, but it does have one fan
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Nouvelle Vague: ‘a film of great passion’The Week Recommends Richard Linklater’s homage to the French New Wave
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Wonder Man: a ‘rare morsel of actual substance’ in the Marvel UniverseThe Week Recommends A Marvel series that hasn’t much to do with superheroes
