Like Happiness

January 29, 2024
In Villarreal-Moura’s accomplished first novel (after the chapbook Math for the Self-Crippling), an American expat in Chile reckons with the fraught friendship she had with an older novelist that began when she was in college. A dual timeline narrative portrays the relationship’s origins. Tatum Vega, a Texan enrolled at Williams College in 2000, writes a fan letter to lauded Puerto Rican short story writer M. Dominguez, and their correspondence rapidly escalates into an obsessive friendship and occasional romance. After graduation, Tatum moves to New York City to be closer to the writer, who insists she call him Mateo. In 2015 Santiago, where Tatum lives with her partner Vera, she’s contacted by a New York Times reporter who’s writing an exposé on Dominguez’s alleged sexual assault of another young Latinx woman. Addressing her narration to Mateo—“I’m sure you recall that the New York Times Book Review devoted two full pages to the release of your long-awaited novel”—Tatum slowly builds to the alarming revelation in that novel’s pages that sent her far away from the writer. Questions of whether and how Mateo groomed Tatum reverberate throughout the subtle and satisfying narrative. This leaves readers with much to chew on.

February 1, 2024
When Tatum Vega first delves into Happiness, by renowned writer M. Dominguez, she's captivated by short stories that mirror her own life and reflect her Chicana culture. Drawn to the author and his writing, Tatum emails him. Her email exchanges with Mateo lead to phone calls, culminating in a decade-long close friendship that edges toward romance. Navigating her fascination with Mateo while figuring out her own identity and life purpose, Tatum finds moments of self-discovery as Mateo wields a strong influence over her. Set between Tatum's present day in Chile, 2015, and her prior life in New York City, Villarreal-Moura's first novel relates Tatum's experiences firsthand. In the present, Mateo is accused of egregious abuse, and investigative reporter Jamal contacts Tatum to inquire about her experiences with the writer. Year by year, the layers of their relationship are revealed, reaching a crescendo that prompts the question: what did Mateo do to sever their friendship? This compelling read delves into the idealism of youth, the harsh lesson of learning whom to trust, and the complexities of self-actualization.

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February 1, 2024
A woman recalls her friendship with a man caught in the grip of the #MeToo movement. In Santiago in 2015, Tatum Vega lives with her girlfriend, settled into her life as a museum employee far from her working-class roots in San Antonio, Texas. She's contacted by a journalist from the New York Times who wants to know about her relationship with the writer M. Dominguez, who has been accused of sexual improprieties. Initially reluctant to discuss her friendship with M., whom she knows as Mateo, and cautioning the journalist that she was never sexually mistreated by him, Tatum finally agrees to a series of conversations; eventually, this onslaught of memories causes her to chronicle her time with M. Addressing Mateo in the second person, Tatum recounts her past as a transplanted Tejana at Williams College in Massachusetts, a place she picked so she could be close to the history of literary heroes like Sylvia Plath. Her desire to exist merely as a "pulsating mind" leaves her lonely and largely friendless; her status as Latina in the white-dominated worlds of the arts and humanities leads her to reach out to the Latino author of the short story collection Happiness, her favorite book. The fan letter she writes kickstarts a decade of a (mostly) platonic relationship in which Tatum and Mateo endure failed romances, Mateo struggles to write a novel, and Tatum gradually comes to understand her sexuality. As the chronicle barrels toward the moment when the relationship implodes, Tatum realizes there are many different kinds of violation. Though Villarreal-Moura's writing style is a bit buttoned-up, her emotionally astute novel offers a moving perspective on the different kinds of victims abusers leave in their wake. Memorable and incisive, this debut grapples elegantly with the complexity of betrayal.

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