A CONVERSATION WITH MARISOL MURANO
Author of Valentina Goldman’s Immaculate Confusion
About the book:
Set against the backdrop of contemporary Venezuela and the United States, Valentina Goldman’s Immaculate Confusion explores issues of identity, clashes and reconciliations universal to us all. The novel is an eccentric and witty exploration of the immigrant life in the United States.
Q What is Valentina Goldman’s Immaculate Confusion about?
Speaking broadly, this is a humorous story about the life of a sassy Latina in the United States. More specifically the book explores issues of identity, of what it means to straddle two cultures while trying to figure out where home is. Like so many of us, Valentina ends up getting a life she never imagined.
Q What is Valentina confused about?
For starters, Valentina is desperate to assimilate, to blend in. But given how opinionated and eccentric she is, this is next to impossible. In the process of trying to adapt to her adopted country she does crazy things: getting blue contact lenses, then green, dying her hair, changing her name, moving, changing jobs, changing careers. In fact, her favorite saying is: “The secret to happiness is to keep moving.” But while she’s bent on hiding her plight with humor, deep down, Valentina feels like a fugitive on the run. She has no idea where she belongs.
Q In her offbeat way, Valentina paints us a picture of both: her life in the States and in her native Venezuela, complete with details of the whacky lives of the family she left behind. There are roosters involved, eight uncles, mistresses, bows and arrows and a hamster who commits suicide. Do any of her experiences mirror your own life?
When my first book came out people asked me if that was my life. Now you’re asking me the same question. (Laughs).
I think all the stories we tell are like reflections -- angles that shed light on some part of us. I say reflections because they are not the reality itself. For instance, Valentina can’t cook to save her life, whereas I am a chef by training. In order to buck the stereotype that all Latinas have abuelitas who taught them to how to cook, I made Valentina’s first husband -- Jean-Pierre -- the food connoisseur instead. I have worked with many great French chefs and I speak French, so the character of Jean-Pierre came practically fully formed.
I think good fiction cannot be a copy of reality, but rather a sharp observation of reality which you then mold in the service of telling a memorable story.
