-I loved your book.
This is a story that takes place in Colombia
during the reign of Pablo Escobar,
and it's told from the perspectives of two young women.
And this is a very personal story for you.
This was inspired a great deal by your own biography.
-Yeah, this is true. I grew up in Colombia.
And I was very lucky to be in a family
where my parents came from --
They were very poor. Very poor families.
And I went from living at home
to experiencing the two Colombias that exist.
And the other thing that inspired this book
was my mother would take in girls
who had been displaced by the civil war in Colombia.
And they would live in our house,
and they would be our nannies, and they would do maid's work.
They would live with us.
And some of my earliest memories
was listening to these women talk and talk,
you know, tell us about their lives,
which were starkly different than what I was living.
-And so, at a very young age, you became aware
much in the way the character in the book does
of class and of you having more advantage than others.
Was that something you always thought you'd write about?
-It wasn't something that I always thought
I would write about, but it was something
that stayed with me as -- as a piece of knowledge
that maybe not a lot of people had.
And so, I felt an urgency when I started to write to address it,
and one of the things that I -- that, you know, made me realize
just the difference in the lives and the quality of life
was that when we would go and visit my family
in the Northeastern part of Colombia, they would --
we would have dinner together and we would,
you know, buy food and bring food with us.
And I would hear my cousins say things like,
"Oh, now, we're eating like kings.
There's so much food."
And the food that we would bring with us would be just --
We just bought fried chicken.
-So, you --
I want to ask about this, as well, because you --
Obviously, you said a lot of you is in the character, Chula,
which is the young girl.
Your parents, your family, were they the inspiration
for your family in the book, as well?
-Yeah. -And were they excited or upset
that you were about to put them in a novel?
-I was very lucky to have family members
who are all very outgoing, and they loved to,
you know, hear people talk about them.
So when I told them, "I'm writing a book about you,"
they were very excited, yeah. -[ Laughs ]
-Even though, you know, some of the --
Certainly the parents
are not the most moral people in the book.
Did your parents appreciate that was a fictionalized version?
-They -- Not so much.
But I would call them, especially my mom,
'cause I love the way that she reacts to things.
I would call her, and I would say, "Guess what.
Your character is having an affair now."
And she -- in her best, you know, telenueve voice,
she would be like, "No! Like, tell me everything.
Why? Why did I do that?"
[ Laughter ]
-And your mother, obviously, Spanish is her first language.
She speaks some English.
And you have noticed that her English is changing a bit
based on the TV she's watching?
-Yeah. My -- My brother-in-law
was on a "Property Brothers" show, and so she was --
my mother was staying with my sister, and they would --
she would watch the show endlessly.
And she started to watch all these home-improvement shows,
and she started to pick up English from that.
So, you know, now when I bring her coffee,
she'll be like, "It's my dream. It's huge. I love it."
[ Laughter ]
-And this is great.
I mean, because, again, I found this book so engaging.
It's, like, a wonderful book about how children
see very scary things while they're happening.
Obviously, you know, it's happening
during this really scary time in Colombia.
But, also, this is a crazy-real detail about your life.
Your mother ran a fortune-telling business
out of your attic? -Yeah. This is true.
-And so what was that like?
-So, my father had just lost his job at the time.
And so my mother started a fortune-telling business
in the attic. And she --
You know, one of my favorite pastimes
when I was young was to watch the people who came and went.
And one, there was one woman who was --
She wore these stylish ponchos,
and she would always come, and she was a complete
mystery to us, because she always asked about dates.
She wanted to know if a date was auspicious or inauspicious.
And I had my own theory.
I told my mom, "She's probably a wedding planner."
Oh, that would be a good way to ask.
Of course, you'd want to know that.
-And, you know, my mom, she thought maybe
there's something there, but she didn't quite want to ask
because we needed the money. -Right.
-And there was one time where she came back,
the woman came back, and she was very thankful.
And she brought an envelope with tickets and a hotel stay
all paid expenses in Medellín.
And we begged my mother to take it.
We were like, "You never take us anywhere.
Like, please, take us."
You know, We'll never get to experience this again."
We went to Medellín,
and we were kind of followed around by the staff.
And everything we did,
you know, if I tried to take a sweater off,
somebody would come and take it off for me
and, like, drape it on a chair.
So we got increasingly suspicious.
-Yeah, that's -- This is not wedding behavior, yeah.
-And so, when we came back to Bogata
and my mother kind of asked her,
"But you're not a mule, are you?"
And she kind of said it. -Not a drug mule?
-Yeah. Not a drug mule, right?
And she said it as a joke, and the woman said,
"No, that's -- people who work for me are, though."
[ Laughter ]
-"I'm like in charge of the drug mules."
-Yeah. -And did that then make you
feel a little guilty about taking
the all-expense paid trip to Medellín?
-Of course. Yeah.
And we found out that she worked for Pablo Escobar.
And we were so terrified about receiving blood money
that we just went to the church,
and we had a priest bless us with holy water.
[ Laughter ]
-Well, obviously, that worked out because you're okay.
The book is great, and thank you so much for being here.
I really appreciate it.
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