Poured Over: Xochitl Gonzalez on Olga Dies Dreaming
“You know, there’s something that we don’t talk about, which I think is like the underside of success and ambition, which is that for every step that we take towards something, it’s a step away from something. And the more that we have these rarefied experiences, the more isolating they can be…” Olga Dies Dreaming is one of 2022’s most anticipated debuts and our January Discover pick; Xochitl Gonzales joins us on the show to talk about her fabulous new novel and unforgettable protagonist, what it means to be part of a community (or leave one behind), heading to the Iowa Writers Workshop and earning an MFA at 40, the books and writers who inspire her, and more. Featured books: Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitl Gonzales, The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, The World According to Garp by John Irving, and The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem. Poured Over is produced and hosted by Miwa Messer and engineered by Harry Liang. New episodes of Poured Over land Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional bonus eps on Saturdays) on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher and wherever you listen to podcasts
From this episode:
B&N: It’s also a really interesting way to write about ambition. And it’s almost unconventional in a way, because here you are, Matteo comes back, Olga comes back. Prieto actually leaves to go to college, upstate, and comes back. And not only does he come back, he lives with grandma.
Xochitl Gonzales: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
B&N: I mean, in all of these conventional narratives that we look for, especially in the context of the American dream, you’ve got to leave, you’ve got to leave everything behind your old life, your family, everything. And your characters are saying, well, actually, no, we’re going to do this on our terms.
Xochitl Gonzales: There’s almost an even further embracing of that as the book goes on. Because one of the things that’s really at odds with any kind of assimilation in any migrant group, ethnic group that comes to this country, where family is the root of what your group is, you’re at odds with the American Dream to a certain extent, because that’s saying, you got to put all of your time into accumulating things that lead towards material and optics success, right. And that is all stuff that’s gonna pull you away from family and home. And I think that what is happening is like, I can’t fully do that. There’s no ability to fully commit to that for many of these characters. And then I think, I really need to rethink what successes and whose terms did I decide this on? …Not foreseeing any of this that’s happening now in the world, but I do think that that’s sort of what is happening post pandemic is that we’re seeing a lot of like, What does this mean to have a good life? Right? I think that what we’re seeing happening in Olga is I don’t ever feel comfortable fully embracing this version of success. And maybe by the end, we have characters that are like, I think I need to rethink the whole thing. And what does that mean, and on whose terms was that decided?