On Sisterhood & Female Friendships
with Christine Kandic Torres, author of 'The Girls In Queens'
#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!
How does it work?!
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.
If you are new here don’t forget to check out all the other amazing interviews! We also have a great line-up of guest authors coming up so make sure you don’t miss an issue by subscribing now!
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Hey Heyyy Book Franz!
Another week, another Nuevas Pagina,s and today’s issue comes with some NEWS! I am really excited to share that I’ll be moderating my first ever bookish event in NYC this coming September for….wait for it…….THE 2022 BROOKLYN BOOK FESTIVAL!!!!
If you haven’t heard of the Brooklyn Book Festival, it’s New York City’s largest free literary festival and it connects readers with local, national, and international authors and publishers during the course of a full week (September 25-October 3rd). I have personally visited NYC for the BK Festival before and had such an amazing time, so this news feels so surreal to me. I’m deeply grateful to Kew and Willow Books for inviting me to moderate their ‘Latinx Stories in Queens’ BK Book Festival event which will feature today’s special author guest (Christine Kandic Torres) and a previous Nuevas Paginas author (Alejandro Varela)! So if you are in the NYC area or want to find yourself in the area for the event - register here to join us.
Speaking of bookish events, this coming Sunday, August 7th at 6:30 PM ET, I’ll be chatting with Daisy Hernandez author of The Kissing Bug: A True Story of a Family, an Insect, and a Nation's Neglect of a Deadly Disease hosted by Charis Books & More and the Feminist Women's Health Center and their Lifting Latinx Voices Initiative.
I have a deep love for Daisy’s book and I hope you’ll consider joining us to learn more about this phenomenal book - link to register for the event here.
Without further ado, our special guest author today is….Christine Kandic Torres author of The Girls In Queens….
photo credit: Nont Pansringarm
Could you tell me a bit about where this photo was taken? Is it special to your book in some way?
This photo was taken at Broadway Park in Elmhurst, Queens. Except it’s not actually called “Broadway Park,” it’s technically called Moore Homestead Park, but I’ve never heard anyone on this great green Earth call it that. The family of Clement Clark Moore, the author of A Visit from St. Nicholas (aka The Night Before Christmas), lived on this plot of land centuries ago, and it’s named after them. Brisma and Kelly, the main characters of The Girls in Queens, grow up on the fictional “Clement Moore Avenue,” named in honor of this park, which also appears in a few scenes of the novel, and holds a special place in my heart.
It's not exactly idyllic: there is no green space beyond these few trees, it’s set between a halfway house, a fish market, and a Verizon facility. But it also has a true town square vibe with all different cross-sections of the community carving out a space for themselves here, from the ballers, to the BMXers, to the tai chi ladies, and the scores of gamblers congregating around chess tables at each corner of the park. It’s a microcosm of the greater multicultural landscape of Queens in one square city block.
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.
Julia Alvarez and the way she wrote about sisterhood and female relationships; Elena Ferrante capturing the true, complicated push and pull of friendships between women and young girls, and how it’s not always just one end of a continuum (all rainbows and unicorns and solidarity) or the other (cattiness and pettiness and jealousy). The way Toni Morrison captured the vulnerability of shame and trauma, and the ways the mind protects itself to survive. I also don’t think there are many stories, regardless of the medium, that center women as sports fans, and I wanted to use that as part of my exploration of how these girls learned to build their emotional armor and identify with traditionally masculine ideals to cling to a false sense of security.
What are two central themes in your book that you connect with the most and why?
I wrote the first draft of this novel before the #MeToo movement catapulted into the mainstream consciousness, but one of the key parts of the conversation I don’t think we talk enough about is how internalized misogyny prevents us from believing and supporting women, including ourselves. It’s not just the amorphously evil patriarchy that silences these women; it’s us, too. And what happens when allegations bubble up within communities of color? How does that complicate our response and inform our instincts on who to protect? I wanted to write a story that would examine what happens in a young girl’s life that sets her on a path away from sisterhood and toward upholding this violent status quo—how do we get to the point of diminishing another woman’s experience, when we too have experienced much of the same? How do we heal and show up for each other, and treat each other better?
Along those lines, I also wanted to write a female friendship that felt authentic to me: one strained by the influence of toxic masculinity/machismo, yet buoyed by a deep sense of love and pride for each other’s survival. There are heavy themes in the novel, but there is also joy, hope, and a sense of optimism undergirding the friendships at its core.
If a book was home, where would your home be?
I mean, obviously Queens. Queens is an important part of the novel, not only because it is the literal backdrop for these girls, but because I’ve found that Queens—as the most diverse county in all of the United States, if not the world— became a true home, or patria, for so many first- and second-generation immigrant kids who grew up pulled between, suffocated by, or excluded from the culture(s) of their families of origin. Queens in this book really comes to symbolize any diverse immigrant community that provides space and fellowship for kids who are longing to belong.
But if another book felt like home for me? Probably Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and Julia Alvarez’s In the Time of the Butterflies, both books I first encountered in my youth, and which I’ve returned to several times since.
If your book was a famous musician who would it be?
It would be a cross between Nas and Olivia Rodrigo. Tough, angry, proud, but also heartbroken and yearning for love.
What comfort food could a reader pair with your book?
There’s a scene in the book where Brisma laments not making a pernil for Thanksgiving while helping her mother prepare a more traditional turkey. So I’ve got to say, a whole Puerto Rican holiday spread would hit the spot: pernil, arroz con gandules, pasteles. A solid backup option would be any item from a bodega with the price printed right on it (Wise potato chips, Arizona Iced tea, Chifles, etc.). Bonus points if the bag or can is just a little dusty.
In what ways has access (or little to no access) to Hispanic/Latinx/e literature defined you as a writer?
As a teen, I randomly bought an anthology called Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Café because it had the word Nuyorican in it. I didn’t know the café even existed until then, and I wouldn’t step foot inside until many years later, but I credit that volume with introducing me to diasporic literature and themes that I felt deeply connected to for the first time (and of course, Miguel Piñero, Pedro Pietri, Willie Perdomo, etc.). After that, I sought out books by other Latinx authors like Esmeralda Santiago, Isabel Allende, and Sandra Cisneros at the Queens Public Library, all of whom helped inform the kind of writer I’d become. It felt like each time I read one of their works, the permission to write my story, too, was renewed.
It wasn’t until I read Drown in college, though, that I felt something powerful in me shift into gear. Some of those stories really felt like pages from my life in a way that nothing else quite had before. That’s when a new fire was lit within me to not only be inspired by, but to write the kind of fiction that finds beauty and vitality in the reality of contemporary working-class, immigrant and immigrant-descendent city kids.
Where can readers keep up with your work?
I’m most active on IG @christinekandictorres, but you can also find me on Twitter @christinekandic, and my website, christinekandictorres.com
A huge thank you to Christine Kandic Torres for taking the time to chat with me about her book! Please please make sure you purchase a copy (or request your local library carry a copy) of her book #SupportLatinxLit!
Christine Kandic Torres was born and raised in New York City. Her Pushcart Prize-nominated short stories have been published in various literary journals, such as Catapult, Kweli, Lunch Ticket, and Cosmonauts Avenue. She has received support for her work from Hedgebrook, VONA, and the Jerome Foundation with an Emerging Artist Fellowship for fiction. For her debut novel, The Girls in Queens, she received a 2020 New Work Grant from the Queens Council on the Arts. Christine currently lives in the suburbs with her family, but still supports writers in her home borough through her work with Newtown Literary, a journal and non-profit organization that serves Queens residents.
Synopsis for The Girls In Queens Bookshop website:
Growing up in the '90s along Clement Moore Avenue in Queens, Brisma and Kelly are two young Latinas with an inseparable bond, sharing everything and anything with each other. The girls are opposites: Brisma is sweet, sensitive, and observant, whereas Kelly is free-spirited, flirtatious, and bold. But together, they binge on Sour Patch Kids, listen to Boyz II Men cassette tapes, and dance to Selena and Mariah Carey where no one can see them.
In high school, their friendship starts to form cracks when Brisma finds herself in a relationship with Brian, a charismatic baseball star. Brisma is thrilled to finally have something--someone--to herself. But Kelly wasn't built to be a third wheel.
Years later, the Mets begin a historic run for the playoffs, and Brisma and Kelly--now on the cusp of adulthood--reconnect with Brian after years of silence. But then Brian is charged with sexual assault. Brisma and Kelly find themselves on opposite sides of the accusation, viewing their past and past traumas from completely different vantage points, and the two lifelong friends will have to decide if their shared history is enough to sustain their future.
Told in alternating timelines, Christine Kandic Torres's incredible debut explores the unbreakable bonds of friendship, complications of sexual-abuse allegations within communities of color, and the danger of forgetting that sometimes monsters hide in plain sight.
The best way you can support Latinx/e authors and Latinx/e literature is by doing the following:
REQUEST that your local library carry a copy
PURCHASE a copy of a friend, family member, or your nemesis (hey! I’m sure they read too).
SHOUT about the book on any social media platform or to your friends and family!
SHARE this interview widely! Word of mouth does wonders for connecting readers to books.
REVIEW their books on any website that sells books!
This sounds great! Thanks for putting it on my radar. I'm excited to check it out!
I've heard AMAZING things about this book and need to go dig it out of my shelves! I keep forgetting I have it! Also CONGRATULATIONS ON MODERATING holy cow that is amazing!