Anita de Monte Laughs Last

Raquel is a Latinx art student at Brown who was raised in Brooklyn, and the majority-white, Ivy-League world that she enters in college is a new universe for her. (Her timeline begins in 1998, years after Anita’s death.) Raquel is characterized in part through her intellect and her interest in the politics of race, ethnicity, and gender, and her ongoing attempts to navigate her own personal relationships at Brown demonstrate the finer nuances of these issues. She struggles at Brown because of what she describes as its polarizing atmosphere of “first world” versus “third world” interests, and she additionally struggles in her relationship with the increasingly controlling, affluent Nick Fitzsimmons. Ultimately, Raquel finds direction and a sense of self through her own family and community of color. Her progress is further facilitated by a positive working relationship with a female curator, who inspires her to revive public interest in Anita de Monte, an artist of color about whom she was not taught in her art history courses.

Raquel is a keen observer of others, and the politics of race, gender, and skin color do not escape her. She is able to analyze the ways in which white students mistreat students of color because of their own stereotypes and preconceived notions, and she comes to understand that the erasure of artists of color from the canon of important artistic figures is rooted in white supremacy rather than in a lack of artists of color or a lack of quality art by such artists. She is also willing to engage her professors in serious conversations about art and its politics, and although she does not begin the novel with an entirely intact sense of self-worth, she does come to understand her power as a critical voice by the time the novel concludes.

Because of this landscape of stereotype and prejudice, Raquel struggles at Brown. Her closest friends are other students of color, and she cannot break into the main clique of girls in the art history department. She understands that this difficulty stems from a combination of skin color prejudice and classism; Raquel did not grow up in an affluent family, and she lacks the obvious class markers that reveal her classmates’ backgrounds. Thus, Gonzalez uses Raquel’s character to examine and indict anti-Latinx prejudice and class-based discrimination in the art world. It is also important to note that Raquel’s relationship with Nick can be read through the lens of race and class, for she is initially drawn to him because of his success and social privilege. Their relationship allows her to access spaces that had previously been closed to her, and she accepts his overbearing gifts of clothing, wardrobe direction, and advice on her appearance because she understands that he has a better sense of how to curate one’s image for mainstream public consumption. However, she eventually realizes that Nick too sees her through the prejudiced lens of race and class. He wants her to be thin, quiet, and chic because those are the values of the very privileged, very white world in which he was raised. As she begins to resort to disordered eating habits to lose weight, both Nick and his mother compliment her on her slim appearance; in this moment, Raquel realizes that “less of her was worth more in this world” (95).

Although Raquel initially tries to fit into Nick’s world, she ultimately realizes that he is a shallow man whose beliefs and values are rooted in misogyny and white supremacy. When she leaves Nick, she reconnects with her friends of color and her family, and she finds affirmation, support, and respect in both spaces. She begins to understand that the people with whom she shares history and cultural affinity are her true community, and she learns that she does not need to mask her identity or to move exclusively within white social circles. Her decision to study the work of Anita de Monte with a female mentor allows her to write a thesis that catapults her onto the art scene as a unique critical voice. By creating her own authentic version of success, she emphasizes the importance of both communities and artists of color in the contemporary world. Raquel’s evolution illustrates Gonzalez’s broader indictment of a politics of race and class that excludes people of color from high-culture spaces. Alongside Anita de Monte herself, Raquel is a powerful argument for the importance of diversity.

Jack is Anita’s husband. He is a large man, and Anita speculates that “his physical form expanded, I think, to match his import in the world of art” (4). Jack enjoys attention and habitually enters rooms with an air of gravitas in hopes that he will be observed. He has a fragile ego and worries that Anita’s successes will overshadow his own. He is also a deeply misogynistic individual, and his character traits illustrate the ways in which toxic masculinity can ruin relationships and breed violence.

Although Jack and his curator friend, Tilly, often point out what they see as attention-seeking behavior in Anita, it is Jack who truly wants to be in the spotlight. He revels in the attention that he receives for his sculpture, and he is fond of staging theatrical entrances to shows, events, and parties. He is initially drawn to Anita because he wants a cheerleader to stand beside him and praise him for his success; he does not recognize or respect her own unique talent. He even twists her life story in order to make her appear to be his “Marxist crusader.” He has cultivated an “everyman” image, and he hopes to portray his Cuban wife as a class-warrior communist, even though the truth is that her family was affluent and did not support Fidel Castro.

He is largely motivated by frequent attempts to protect his particularly fragile ego. He cannot stomach the idea of Anita’s success, and his mistreatment of her increases as her fame grows. Exhibiting controlling behavior and using his money to shame her, he buys her clothing not because he thinks that she will like it, but because he sees her as a doll—an accessory to dress up so that her image will match his. After her death, Anita’s spirit takes revenge by altering Jack’s art, and he becomes particularly enraged because these pieces are better received than any of his other work. His deepest fear is that he will become irrelevant in the art world, and he therefore works hard to prevent the spread of Anita’s success and fame after her death. He hopes that she will be the one to fade from the public eye.

Jack is also characterized through his misogyny and violence, and for this reason, he is the novel’s primary antagonist. His disrespect towards Anita grows during the course of the narrative, and his is unfaithful to her with increasing regularity. Their arguments reveal that his motivation for resentment is rooted in both ego and misogyny, and in their final fight, he makes it clear that he resents Anita’s success. That he is able to murder her in cold blood and then avoid responsibility reveals the broader misogynistic and racist elements of mainstream society, and his callous actions demonstrate the true threat of toxic masculinity. His character also speaks to the novel’s examination of violence against women and the relationship between gender-based discrimination and domestic abuse.

Nick Fitzsimmons is Raquel’s boyfriend. He comes from an affluent family, and although he tries to escape his privilege, it has shaped him in ways that he does not fully understand. Although he is still a senior in art school, his family’s connections have already garnered him a degree of success as a sculptor. Like Jack, he has a fragile ego that manifests in his views on art and in his relationship with Raquel. As the novel progresses, Nick becomes increasingly controlling, and the parallels between him and Jack Martin became more prominent.

Nick was born into the kind of wealth that Raquel has only dreamed about, and his parents are important figures in their own right in New York City’s art scene. As donors, board members, and friends to influential gallerists, they wield a tremendous amount of power. Although Nick likes to think that he resists the negative stereotypes that accompany this kind of wealth, he has inherited a set of beliefs around class, propriety, and creativity that are tainted by sexist and white supremacist perspectives. He judges Raquel for aspects that he perceives to be “low-class,” and he begins to purchase new clothing and dictate her wardrobe in an effort to help her appear chic and sophisticated. He also encourages her to lose weight, and he adheres closely to white beauty standards.

His sculpture has garnered considerable attention given his relative inexperience, but Raquel does observe that there is something derivative about the art that he produces. When the gallerist Tilly Barber agrees to show his work, it becomes evident that his parents have been working behind the scenes in order to ensure his success. Tilly, who also represented Jack Martin, is a major gallerist, and it is only the influence of people like the Fitzsimmonses that prompts her to take on a young, mediocre artist like Nick. His willingness to use his family connections in service of his career illustrates the fact that much of his criticism of wealth is little more than lip service. At the end of the day, he is happy to use his privilege to advance his own career.

Ultimately Raquel realizes that Nick is motivated primarily by self-interest, and his art is driven by “the frailty of his ego” (156). He sees Raquel primarily as a supporter and bases his love for her on how successful she makes him feel. Raquel initially finds this aspect of their relationship to be endearing, but she realizes over time that he does not see her for who she is; instead, he views her as an accessory to his own rising career. In this way, Nick embodies the same kind of toxic masculinity that Jack does, and like Jack, he begins to exert his control over Raquel as they get closer. He wants a romantic partner who is beautiful, thin, quiet, and oriented towards supporting his career rather than pursuing her own success. His character embodies the enduring nature of misogyny; he may be of a different generation than Jack Martin, but he still believes in the inherent superiority of men.