Anita de Monte Laughs Last (Hardback)

Set across dual timelines in which both so much and so little has changed, this is a smart, funny – and furious – shout out to agency, ownership and the female creative spirit in the face of art world hierarchies, hypocrisies and –isms - Marie Claire

Halfway through the novel she upends things, turning a narrative about race relations into a ghost story ... It is this kind of genre-busting that distinguishes her writing ... Gonzalez crosshatches her characters with flaws and redeeming aspects ... Gonzalez is similarly nuanced in her clear-eyed deconstructions of skewed value systems - Financial Times

Anita de Monte Laughs Last is a cry for justice. Writing with urgency and rage, Gonzalez speaks up for those who have been othered and deemed unworthy, robbed of their legacy - Washington Post

There is an innate rage and melody in the prose, which is beautifully written - Glamour

A passionate and piercing examination of power in elite art circles - Sydney Morning Herald

Gonzalez’s sophomore outing deserves a mouse on her doorstep in gratitude ... This is a brutal but ultimately heartwarming and certainly thought-provoking novel of Latinx magic, family, and feminine power - Booklist (starred review)

Gonzalez shrewdly anatomizes racial and class hierarchies ... Gonzalez, herself a Brown graduate, brilliantly captures the daily slights endured by someone perceived as Other, from microaggressions to brutally racist behavior ... An uncompromising message, delivered via a gripping story with two engaging heroines - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Part campus novel, part ghost story, Xochitl Gonzalez’s second novel, Anita de Monte Laughs Last, fear­lessly takes on racism and misogyny in the rarefied world of fine art and art history ... Though told with humour and a light touch, Gonzalez doesn’t shy away from serious issues: the erasure of women from the art history canon and the racism often faced by first generation students of colour at Ivy League colleges ... Anita de Monte Laughs Last boldly questions the choices behind what we are taught and demands that the complete story be disclosed - BookPage (starred review)

Funny, piercing, and full of moxie ... What Xochitl Gonzalez has written is an affirmation for anyone who's ever had to 'work twice as hard to get half as much.' Anita de Monte Laughs Last is rollicking, melodic, tender, and true. And oh so very wise - Robert Jones, Jr., author of THE PROPHETS, a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction

Bravo! A remarkable story about reclaiming what has been erased. Reader, enjoy! - Ana Castillo, author of SO FAR FROM GOD

I might have actually gasped when I read the news that Anita De Monte Laughs Last would be published in 2024. Gonzalez has that particular penchant for navigating perspectives in a voice that’s at once delightfully humorous and sobering. Anita demonstrates that penchant from its earliest sentences, flowing right into the New York City art world of the ’80s and ’90s with enviable ease - Elle