Jonathan Marcantoni serves up a picante slice of life with his latest locally based novel, Kings of 7th Avenue. The established author, editor and filmmaker adopted Tampa as a backdrop for a group of first-generation 20-something Puerto-Rican Americans dealing with issues around personal identity, success, cultural and romantic conflicts.
The 31-year-old author also engages in some heady explorations of ethnically rooted misogyny and the treatment of women in Tampa's subcultures, which he presents as a microcosm for society at large.
Born in Philadelphia native and Puerto Rican-Italian by ancestry, Marcantoni grew up visiting family in the Lutz area and graduated from the University of Tampa in 2009 with a bachelor's in Spanish Studies.
"I consider Tampa my second hometown because my adult life began there," says Marcantoni, who now calls Colorado home. "I not only graduated from college there but I also met my wife and became a father."
From a young age, Marcantoni blended in with the city's cultural paella — his imagination stoked by the seedy idiosyncrasies and peculiar contradictions of Joe Redner's stripper mecca, wealthy white Krewe-meisters and Latino immigrant communities.
With Kings of 7th Avenue, the author lays out an accessible but insightful account of Tampa's new Latino generation. He offers a fondness for the city as well as some cheeky ridicule.
Some local lit enthusiasts may also know Marcantoni as the head of Aignos publishing company, which released Best of the Bay-winning writer Paul Guzzo's latest books The Dark Side of Sunshine and The Overnight Family Man. Marcantoni even has a character in the book inspired by Guzzo.
Marcantoni will speak about and read from his new book to University of Tampa's Creative Writing program, in tandem with this month's Lectores series, on Mon., Jan. 11, at 4 p.m. The event is open to the public. Click here to find out more.
CL had the chance to chat with the author before his Tampa appearance. Marcantoni shared with us his influences, visions of Tampa and a Hollywood adaptation — and more.
CL: Please talk a little about going from editing others' books and writing your own. Was there a switch or were you always doing both? How do you balance both tasks? How does one continue to influence the other?
JM: I was a writer long before I was an editor, but these last 10 years of editing have undoubtedly influenced my writing. I am extremely aware of every scene, every line. I'm especially aware and concerned with structure, how different pieces fit together, which concepts can be conveyed subtly and which need to be explicit, which is an editing mindset that has helped a lot as a storyteller. I develop my books in my head, and when I finally sit down to write, I've revised the scene countless times before. I edit a lot while I write, which is not something I suggest for most writers. It can get in the way of making progress if you aren't careful. You have to know when to switch the editor off in your head and just let the words flow. In filmmaking, there is a joke that if a mistake is made, 'we'll fix it in post,' that also applies as a writer. It just takes practice, and a willingness to allow a story to develop organically rather than forcing it to be something it isn't.
You have a knack for natural, believable dialogue. Tell us about your writing process, how you absorb experiences and influences from your upbringing and adult life.
Kings of 7th Avenue uses a lot of biographical information, more than any other book of mine, and at one point — as I already mentioned, I play the story out in my head, repeatedly, before ever writing it — I made a conscious decision to not be very faithful to my life. The story of Ana and Lou was the impetus for the book, and that relationship is unlike any I've ever been in. The story is about gender dynamics and how they play out personally and socially, and I almost lost that strand when I introduced Layla and Tony, which is based on my wife and I's courtship, I started getting bogged down in being true to life, and the story suffered. It is important to remember why you are writing a story, and I wrote this story because I wanted to capture life in Tampa as I had known it, which was mostly in Ybor's club scene. I wanted a story that was visceral and cinematic, and life doesn't play out like a movie, so you can't get too attached to your real experience. All these ideas ran through my head while I developed the book, and when I wrote it, whenever I ran into a wall, I'd question whether I was being too literal rather than literary, and nine times out of 10, I was. That level of self-awareness is necessary for dialogue as well. What hurts so many writers with dialogue is that they treat it like a plot device, rather than a conversation. Let your characters speak, let them ramble a bit, let them joke and be serious in the same conversation, just like in real life. Then when you edit, you cut it down so there is a balance between reality and drama.
Did you inject aspects of your personality in both Tony and Alberto?
Yes, both intentionally and unintentionally. Originally, the three main male characters were based on different people, with Tony being myself, but by the time I got halfway through writing the book, it was clear that Tony, Alberto, and Lou were all parts of myself. Tony has my insecurities, Alberto has my frustrations as an artist, and Lou has my anger (which I am not proud to admit). By the end I actually felt very little connection to Tony, as he is really who I was at 22, 23 years old, while Alberto is much closer to myself in his perspective and his humor. When Alberto talks about feeling bitter that he works so hard and accomplishes so little, that's me talking. Tony's monologue about how Layla helps him confront and overcome his self-hatred, that's really how I feel about my wife.
Your empathy toward women shows in your female characters. We see the pressure they're under and values they internalize and adopt to attract and hold onto their men, and the demands on women passed down from one generation to another …
I tried hard to show how the attitudes expressed by the Latino characters are reflected by the larger society, because they really influence one another. At one point, in one of the interviews, the speaker describes how parades started off as a projection of how people wanted to see themselves, and then that projection infected society. That's really how I feel, that we treat people based not on reality but on how we'd like reality to be. This greatly worries me because I am a father to three girls, and my biggest fear is what some man will do to them. Men are still largely exempt from responsibility for their behavior all over the world. A man rapes a girl, hits a girl, abuses her verbally, emotionally, etc. there is someone standing by to make an excuse for him. That's frightening for a parent to consider. The problem, however, isn't so simple as: men are evil. The reason these attitudes perpetuate themselves is that many women buy into them, too. These mothers protect their sons by reinforcing this culture of deferred responsibility, and don't even see how misogynistic they themselves are being. It doesn't help that society expects women, if they have any sort of power, to embody the worst qualities of men. So the only way to really fix the issue is for women and men to stand up against it, united. Because it hurts a father as much as it hurts a mother when their daughter is harmed and nobody comes to her aid, as so often happens in rape cases. She gets raped and then gets blamed for it. So fathers and mothers have to address the problem, they both have to speak to their community about their daughter's pain and their own pain. In a sense I do that with Ana, through her character I am sharing with the reader the pain we would all feel if what happens to her happened to our daughters, sisters, cousins.
Do the contradictions of Tampa's historic duality as a good ol' boy Southern town vs. a town built by immigrants serves as an allegory in The Kings of 7th Avenue?
It can be read as an allegory, though more in the vein of Tampa as a microcosm for patriarchal societies. Yet my Marxist beliefs influence everything I write. You see in Alberto's monologues and also in some of the historic insights in the interviews how American society, and all capitalist societies, are not built on the backs of those in power. It is the immigrant, the minority, the poor, who contribute most to culture, the rich just learn how to turn culture into consumption. Just look at Ybor, the club district receives investment and media attention, while the residential part of Ybor is completely ignored and impoverished. Go visit La Segunda Bakery sometime and walk around the equally historic neighborhoods there — oh wait, you won't want to out of fear. Yet the cigar workers and their descendants made those neighborhoods, and they are just as vital to Tampa's history as 7th Avenue. I think Ybor itself is a microcosm of America, use up the talents of a group of people and then discard them. That's the mentality that has infected Lou, it's why he hates being Latino, he sees no use to being a minority if you have an education. Education is for whites, after all. That is a mentality that is behind a lot of the rotting of American culture, no doubt.
Do you have a wish list of what you'd like to see change or happen in Tampa? What would you like to see happen in the next decade or two?
The biggest thing I hope to see in Tampa is light rail becoming a reality. The fact that a bullet train or something similar doesn't exist between Tampa, Orlando and Miami is a disgrace. For a city the size of Tampa and for a state like Florida with so much to do, reliable, fast public transportation should be a top priority. I've spent time in Japan and Spain, and the ease with which you can get between cities was amazing, and it benefits everyone, locals and tourists. I also hope to see Tampa develop its film community more. This is such a cinematic city, and there are so many stories to tell. A lot has been written in the Tribune about the need for legislation to make Florida more attractive to studios, and I strongly support that. I'd love nothing more than to make a Kings of 7th Avenue movie in Ybor and South Tampa, and really show the world what this city has to offer in terms of cinema.
You live in Colorado now, right? When you come back to Tampa, where is the first place you'd like to eat or drink — or both?
Yes, I live in Colorado Springs, about an hour south of Denver. I love the mountains but dearly miss the sea. When I visit Tampa, the first place I go to is King Corona in Ybor, which is featured prominently in the book for good reason. I love enjoying a good beer and a Cuban sandwich while people watching from that huge window of theirs. King Corona is Tampa in my mind, the atmosphere, the people, the history, it's all there.
This article appears in Jan 7-13, 2016.