A Bisexual Chicana Finds Her Voice in “Like Happiness”

Published during the illustrious Year of the Bisexual, Ursula Villarreal-Moura’s thoughtful debut caller Like Happiness popped up connected Best of 2024 speechmaking lists wherever you turned, from NPR and the San Francisco Chronicle to ELLE and Them. The 2 timelines successful this caller hint a young woman’s analyzable and troubling narration with an older antheral writer she admires, arsenic good arsenic her absorption years aboriginal erstwhile the writer is accused of intersexual misconduct. 

With the paperback merchandise of Like Happiness this year, the literate caller is present reaching a caller audience. Through Tatum, the bisexual Chicana protagonist, readers participate the cerebral satellite created by Villarreal-Moura. Tatum evolves from a lonely assemblage pupil astatine a bulk achromatic schoolhouse successful the Northeast, who is enraptured by M. Domínguez’s novel, into a much assured and fulfilled pistillate surviving connected her ain presumption and moving overseas successful Chile. 

Villarreal-Moura’s deft penning and characterization of Tatum gives readers an exceptional portrayal of however lit shapes our identities, however we spot and construe the world, and however we link with different people.

Liz DeGregorio: At the commencement of the novel, Tatum says, “I ne'er fell retired of emotion with reading, oregon much specifically, with different people’s imaginations.” Do you spot Like Happiness arsenic being a emotion missive to literature?

Ursula Villarreal-Moura: Absolutely. The astir enduring narration successful Like Happiness is Tatum’s necktie to books and reading. She has fewer acquaintanceships successful assemblage and a longstanding situationship with M. Domínguez, but she feels astir unafraid wrong of books. It’s her lone existent relationship. It started erstwhile she was a child, and it has carried implicit into her young adulthood and into womanhood. At slightest successful New York, books are her biggest beingness preserver. In Chile, it’s Vera.

I emotion that Books About Books is simply a genre, too. Not surprisingly, I emotion truthful galore novels and works of nonfiction that acceptable into this category. My astir caller favourite is Bibliophobia by Sarah Chihaya. Anyhow, this is each to accidental that I anticipation readers delight successful each the publication allusions, the Easter eggs, I’ve buried successful the novel.  

LD: Your caller tenderly explores Tatum’s large metropolis coming-of-age story. Is this a genre that has stood retired to you successful the past?

UVM: I’ve thought astir my reply for a spot now. Initially, I was going to accidental that yes, I emotion this genre of story, but the information mightiness beryllium that nine is obsessed with youth. As such, the coming-of-age caller is thrust upon america arsenic 1 of the astir compelling types of stories. Who doesn’t similar witnessing a young idiosyncratic marque consciousness of their 1 chaotic and precious life? I do, for sure. Like Happiness makes the astir consciousness arsenic a coming-of-age story, peculiarly due to the fact that I wanted to amusement Tatum’s growth. Behavior she accepts from others successful her twenties becomes unacceptable successful her thirties, truthful I needed a young protagonist to amusement that development. I deliberation if the caller succeeds, it’s due to the fact that we get a spot of a juxtaposition successful her quality arsenic she matures. 

That said, if I measurement backmost and look astatine the larger societal picture, I americium surely blameworthy of placing younker connected a pedestal, too. I’ve bought what nine has sold me. My adjacent books aren’t going to beryllium centered connected young protagonists. I mightiness people immoderate shorter pieces astir youth, but I’ve decidedly go fascinated with narratives astir older characters. Olga Tokarczuk’s caller Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead changed my beingness erstwhile I work it successful 2021. I’m aiming to constitute older pistillate characters with arsenic overmuch verve and tenacity arsenic Tokarczuk does. 

LD: Tatum’s realization that she’s bisexual successful Like Happiness felt precise natural, particularly since it’s normalized arsenic being an important portion of her life, but not her defining characteristic. How bash you consciousness astir the changing practice of bisexuality successful not conscionable lit but popular civilization arsenic well?

UVM: Oh, I emotion it. I was calved successful the last years of the Gen X era, truthful I had nary connection for what I was experiencing arsenic a queer teenager. The lone presumption that were being utilized successful the aboriginal ‘90s that I was acquainted with successful Texas were androgynous and gay. I knew, similar you notation successful your excellent essay astatine Electric Literature, that thing astir Fried Green Tomatoes spoke to maine precise profoundly arsenic a youth. Back successful the ‘80s and ‘90s, queerness was coded, but present it’s commonplace. 

Personally, I consciousness honored to lend to the past of bi narratives. I emotion that bi erasure and biphobia are being examined much successful lit and popular culture. Melissa Broder’s Milk Fed is 1 of my favourite bi novels, and I adore the YA bid Heartstopper, which explores conscionable astir each missive successful the LGBTQIA acronym.  

Wasn’t 2024 hailed The Year of the Bisexual? [Editor’s Note: Yes, it was!] I consciousness similar I work that online successful the fall. Certainly, erstwhile connection got retired that Luigi Mangione was rumored to beryllium bi, his prima grew adjacent brighter, and I was decidedly loving it. 

LD: Upon rereading Like Happiness, I noticed however skillfully subtle foreshadowing was layered into the story. Was M. Domínguez’s specific betrayal thing you ever had successful mind? Or did it travel to you aboriginal successful the penning process?

UVM: The turning point, the betrayal, came to maine aboriginal successful the penning process. In fact, it came to maine years into the writing. I kept wondering however this dynamic would end, what would beryllium the last straw. For years, Tatum has nary reddish enactment with M. Domínguez, truthful I had to unrecorded profoundly successful their satellite to fig it out. 

I knew the turning constituent had to beryllium organic, believable for the characters arsenic good arsenic for the reader. When it came to me, it felt inevitable, like, “Oh yes, of course.”

LD: At a definite point, a antheral writer who is reporting connected M. Domínguez’s patterns of maltreatment makes a condescending remark to Tatum. Why did you put this infinitesimal successful the story?

UVM: I deliberation astir that prime a lot. I don’t privation to divulge excessively overmuch astir that dynamic, but I wanted the scholar to spot [the journalist] Jamal, oregon want to spot Jamal, due to the fact that Tatum needs him to beryllium a bully guy. 

In a way, Tatum talking with Jamal turns retired to beryllium thorny. They’re not friends, but they are successful an speech that has the imaginable to alteration some their lives. Tatum initially believes she has the accidental to archer her broadside of the communicative by collaborating with this journalist, but world is simply a batch much complicated. Jamal can’t beryllium the ventriloquist and Tatum his dummy. It won’t work. 

LD: Did you ever program connected having Tatum relocate to Chile? Similarly, did you determine to person her unrecorded successful Chile earlier oregon aft deciding connected the Alejandro Zambra punctuation that opens Like Happiness?

UVM: Oh, the Zambra epigraph [“Why would you privation to beryllium with idiosyncratic if they didn’t alteration your life?… Life lone made consciousness if you recovered idiosyncratic who would alteration it, who would destruct your beingness arsenic you knew it.”]  came precocious successful the progress. I deliberation it was during second-pass pages close earlier it went to print. The epigraph encapsulates the explosive quality of Tatum and M. Domínguez’s narration rather well. 

The determination for Tatum to unrecorded successful Chile came aboriginal successful the drafting. We’re each acquainted with the conception that a geographical alteration can’t lick a person’s problems. I wanted to interrogate that idea, oregon astatine slightest crook it, if not upside down, connected its side. For Tatum, surviving successful Chile is an improvement, and she’s forced to dispersed her wings determination successful a mode she was ne'er forced to successful New York. She indispensable fig retired who she is, not successful narration to others, but arsenic her ain land with wants and needs. 

LD: I loved the moments wherever you driblet successful Tatum’s taste interests – she listens to Cat Power connected repetition during a breakup, she longs to spot a Marina Abramović performance, she has Jean-Michel Basquiat prints hanging successful her assemblage dorm. How did you determine what benignant of creation she would gravitate to? 

UVM: It was my purpose to amusement however her taste, astatine the opening of the novel, is inactive reasonably dominated by achromatic culture. She’s trying to wade done Virginia Woolf and D.H. Lawrence for her degree, but past she adjacent gives herself these types of assignments extracurricular of class. Yes, she admires Basquiat and reads Sandra Cisneros, but until she falls successful emotion with M. Domínguez’s caller Happiness, it’s arsenic if she doesn’t recognize those works tin instrumentality halfway stage. They don’t person to beryllium insignificant satellites.

While she does perceive to a spot of euphony successful Spanish, her beingness successful New York could beryllium work arsenic an effort to find a location successful a somewhat achromatic heteronormative life. But contempt her champion efforts, it conscionable doesn’t cookware out. All the things she tries to marque acceptable volition ne'er beryllium her keys to success: a narration with a (famous) man, speaking English, adjacent moving an adjunct teacher is an approximate acceptable for her. Her destiny is queerer, browner, and thankfully freer. 

LD: Did you ever contemplate an ending wherever determination was different enactment betwixt Tatum and M. Domínguez?

UVM: This is simply a comic question due to the fact that the last mentation has 1 further past enactment betwixt Tatum and M. Domínguez. Originally the country astatine the schoolhouse didn’t exist, but my cause suggested I constitute beyond what I thought was the ending.  The schoolroom section is really my favourite portion of the full publication now. 

I’d reason the publication doesn’t request much scenes betwixt Tatum and M. Domínguez. I cognize immoderate readers wanted M. Domínguez’s broadside of the story, which *woman face-palming emoji* goes to amusement however ingrained misogyny is if a woman’s relationship isn’t capable and needs to beryllium validated by a man’s account. 

LD: For overmuch of the novel, M. Domínguez’s publication Happiness is Tatum’s literate touchstone – oregon “lifeline,” arsenic she tells him. Was determination a publication (or books) that you felt likewise about?

UVM: I astir decidedly had a literate roster of touchstone books arsenic a young person. Like Tatum, arsenic a child, I was obsessed with Say Goodnight, Gracie by Julie Reece Deaver. In my twenties, I reread Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar and J.D. Salinger’s Franny and Zooey each October; it’s however I welcomed autumn. 

Since then, my rereads of Muriel Spark’s novella The Driver’s Seat and of Roberto Bolaño’s communicative postulation Last Evenings connected Earth person taken over. The abbreviated communicative “Gómez Palacio” is out-of-this-world brilliant. If I were connected a godforsaken island, I honestly deliberation I could reread those 2 books for the remainder of my beingness and consciousness satisfied. 

My extremity this twelvemonth is to reread Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong. Although I’ve lone work it once, I deliberation astir it all the time. I consciousness it’s going to articulation my literate pantheon. 

The station A Bisexual Chicana Finds Her Voice successful “Like Happiness” appeared archetypal connected Electric Literature.