On Misplacement & Community

with Alejandro Varela, author of 'The Town of Babylon'

Jun 28, 2022

#NuevasPaginasconLupita is a space that is both an archive and resource aimed to "spotlight" Hispanic/Latinx/e authors with newly published books. The goal is to connect readers to new and/or old favorite Hispanic/Latinx/e authors and their books! So give this & every post a share to help us reach more readers!

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Here’s the deal, I came up with a set of casual/random/funny questions to ask each Hispanic/Latinx/e author, I interview. For now, the questions will all be the same but maybe in the future I’ll launch this into more specific questions to the author or maybe I’ll turn this series into a mini-podcast, or maybe……well, you get it! The possibilities are endless.

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Hey Heyyy Book Franz!

I could not let Pride month end without bringing you an interview with the author of one of the best queer books I’ve read this year. I finished the book last week but it is still lingering within me. I honestly have the worst book hangover (this is real! If you haven’t experienced it’s basically a feeling of being unable to want to read anything else because you think nothing else might compare) after finishing this book and well another two other queer fiction novels I read earlier this year too. In fact, I must say that queer fiction this year is hitting so very hard. The levels of nuance and themes queer writers are exploring through fiction this year - truly make me so very happy. If you don’t have any queer fiction on your radar or list this year, start by adding this novel.

I am planning a full review of this book but in the meantime, I urge you deeply to get a copy of this book. The themes the author touches on and explores are themes so vital to our community but really all communities as well. I am getting chills thinking back about everything I read. Andrés, the main character who I found to be such a quiet, self-involved, and a tiny bit obnoxious - buried himself into my heart and I realized that so much of his struggles as a Gay man raised by Latinx immigrant parents, parallel my own and those struggles define his character. I was able to understand my thought processing and actions in ways I couldn’t before. Okay…I am basically giving y’all a review of this book because this has gotten so long, but I needed y’all to know how phenomenal I found this deeply layered novel. I won’t keep you from the interview and learning more about this book!!!

Without further ado, our special guest author today is….Alejandro Varela, author of The Town of Babylon!

Photo credit: Mike Clemow

Could you tell me a bit about where this photo was taken? Is it special to your book in some way?

This is where I wrote my book. In 2017, I participated in the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Workspace program—a residency that allowed me to work 9am-5pm and be home in time to pick up my children from school and daycare. Along with seven other mates from that residency, we rented office space in Brooklyn from 2018 to 2020. It was there that I wrote The Town of Babylon. On the wall facing my desk, I had a corkboard where I kept a running list of “Words Typed Per Day.” Having a proper workspace and set schedule motivated me. These circumstances also blunted the doubts and insecurities (and maybe shame?) I felt about being a writer. I hadn’t felt like a true worker before then. The boundaries of space and time allowed me to feel, in a way, like part of the workforce. Even as I type this, I’m aware that a lifetime of capitalism has conditioned me to place value on certain types of work over others. Alas.

Tell me about your book without telling me about your book - share any literary inspirations behind your book! If there are none, the gap you wanted to fill in the literary canon with your book.

Before writing the novel, I took time off to read. Because I’d never been much of a fiction reader prior to writing fiction, I’ve spent the last decade reading every chance I get. Problem is I’m a slow (and easily distracted) reader. It takes a bit of effort on my part to complete a book, even one that I am enjoying. But reading is essential to this profession. In fact, when I’ve applied for grants and fellowships, I’ve budgeted for “reading time.”

The three books that remained with me and certainly influenced The Town of Babylon, were Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Julia Alvarez’s In the Time of Butterflies, and Ursula Le Guin’s The Dispossessed. Each of these gave me the confidence and gumption to play with form—alternating narrators, time jumps, broad and epic narratives—but also to lean into empathy and to explore the world we want to live in. I was able to follow through on my vision, in part, because of these works.

What are two central themes in your book that you connect with the most and why?

The sense of misplacement that accompanies the second-generation and class-jumping experience, and the importance of community as a buffer against stress and poor health. Both of these themes are central to my own life, as well as to the public health curiosities that have influenced my worldview and my work over the last 18 years. Understanding how important it is to eliminate the barriers to community is the first step in improving the health of a population. It is near impossible to have a healthy society that’s stratified by extremes in wealth and power. And the idea of misplacement—maybe displacement?—is one that is central to my protagonists. Immigrants, people of color, women, LGBTQIA+ folks, and anyone who understands marginalization will probably relate to these themes.

Grab a copy of the book here!

If a book was home, where would your home be?

An East Coast suburban town without sidewalks, where all the houses look the same. In the distance, there’s a Bennigan’s, an Applebee’s, a Ruby Tuesday, and a TGI Fridays, like a Mt. Rushmore for the purveyors of mozzarella sticks and discounted margaritas.

If your book was a famous musician who would it be?

Prince: genre-busting, intelligent, sexy, and class-jumping—I think he grew up working class.

What comfort food could a reader pair with your book?

A slightly dirty gin martini (straight up) with three olives, a bowl of mondongo, and a banana split.

In what ways has access (or little to no access) to Hispanic/Latinx/e literature defined you as a writer?

I didn’t have much access in my youth, which left me without touchstones. I knew that Gabriel García Márquez, Isabel Allende, and Mario Vargas Llosa existed, but I wasn’t familiar with their work. In fact, most of the literature assigned to me in school was written by white writers. This dearth of Latinx literature continues to put me at a disadvantage because it’s left me playing catch-up, always trying to understand our cultures, histories, and experiences, so that I can contribute to the broader conversation and better understand myself and my relationship to power in our society.

Luckily, I’m coming up in a moment where I have access to a group of contemporary writers and editors who are leading by example and who are offering support: Chris González, Xochitl González, Cleyvis Natera, Edgar Gómez, Marco Gonsález, Alejandro Heredia, Ernesto Quiñones, Jaime Manrique, Melissa Lozada-Oliva, Justin Torres, Javier Zamora, Raquel Gutiérrez, Frankie Ochoa, Danny Vázquez, Roberto Lovato, Charles Rice-González, etc. etc. These are all people who have extended a hand or left a door open so that I might enter the room.

Where can readers keep up with your work?

I link to all of my published work on my website: alejandrovarela.work. And I post regularly on Twitter (@drovarela) and Instagram (@alejandrovarela.work). I also have a TikTok, but I’m too shy to use it. For a small taste of my work, I offer “Carlitos in Charge.” https://harpers.org/archive/2019/10/carlitos-in-charge-alejandro-varela/

Don't forget to buy the book here!

A huge thank you to Alejandro Varela for taking the time to chat with me about his book! Please please make sure you purchase a copy (or request your local library carry a copy) of their book #SupportLatinxLit!

Author Bio from his website:

Alejandro Varela (he/him) is a writer based in New York. His work has appeared in The Point Magazine, Boston Review, Harper's Magazine, The Rumpus, Joyland Magazine, The Brooklyn Rail, The Offing, Blunderbuss Magazine, Pariahs (an anthology, SFA Press, 2016), the Southampton Review, The New Republic, and has received honorable mention from Glimmer Train Press. He is a 2019 Jerome Fellow in Literature. He was a resident in the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s 2017–2018 Workspace program and a 2017 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Nonfiction. Alejandro was an associate editor at Apogee Journal from 2015 to 2020. His graduate studies were in public health. His first book, The Town of Babylon, is out 3/22/2022. His second book, The People Who Report More Stress, is forthcoming (Astra House, 2023).

Synopsis for The Town of Babylon Bookshop website:

In this contemporary debut novel--an intimate portrait of queer, racial, and class identity --Andrés, a gay Latinx professor, returns to his suburban hometown in the wake of his husband's infidelity. There he finds himself with no excuse not to attend his twenty-year high school reunion, and hesitantly begins to reconnect with people he used to call friends.

Over the next few weeks, while caring for his aging parents and navigating the neighborhood where he grew up, Andrés falls into old habits with friends he thought he'd left behind. Before long, he unexpectedly becomes entangled with his first love and is forced to tend to past wounds.

Captivating and poignant; a modern coming-of-age story about the essential nature of community, The Town of Babylon is a page-turning novel about young love and a close examination of our social systems and the toll they take when they fail us.

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