Hi Maria! What made you decide to use L.A. Weather as a metaphor for the Alvarado family drama and unfolding secrets? —Sonya Y
A lot of people believe that it’s always 72 and sunny in L.A., life here is bliss, and everyone lives like a celebrity. But that is far from reality. This is a city like any other. Everyone has problems, crises, illness, as well as love, happiness and dreams. And we do have weather. I use the weather metaphor to illustrate the disastrous year that the Alvarados experience. If I had written a New Year’s scene, this would have been the farewell message to 2016: “Glad it’s over! Good riddance!”
Is there a character you related to the most? —JoJo B.
There’s a little piece of me in all my characters: Oscar’s love for his family. Keila’s process of becoming an American mom. Claudia’s passion for food. Olivia’s turbo-charged maternal instincts, and Patricia’s radical acceptance. All of them have flaws, and not all of them start off as likeable characters, which is deliberate.
Hi Maria! You seem to have very accurate historical events from 2016 in the SoCal area. How did this shape the story you were writing? Did you have to adjust your events or did it add to it? —Torrey C.
It was really fun to weave into the novel real-life weather events from 2016. As I created scenes on a particular day, I researched the actual weather and if it worked well with the novel, I inserted it into the story. Every fire, Santa Ana wind, rain and even full moons, are accurate, except the last rain on Christmas morning. I made that one up. It’s fiction, after all!
Were there any “deleted scenes” that were originally intended to be in the book? —Diana P
Yes. Originally Lola had two adult sons. She was a great cook. She had been working with Olivia since the beginning of the novel. But in the final version, I had Olivia go through several babysitters, and then promise Lola she wouldn’t flip homes in her neighborhood as a condition Lola imposed so that she would accept the nanny job.
What inspired L.A. Weather and how long did it take you to write it? —Diana P.
I lived in New York City from 2014 to 2018. I met several people who claimed, “There’s no weather in L.A.” I felt I needed to prove otherwise, hence the use of the weather as the background for the Alvarado family story. My previous novels, ESPERANZA’S BOX OF SAINTS and GONZÁLEZ & DAUGHTER TRUCKING CO., are mother-daughter and father-daughter stories respectively. I’d been wanting to write an ensemble piece with five main characters within a family and to explore what the relationship with one another would be like.
What inspired you to include references to the Mexican Jewish community? —Diana P.
I was raised Catholic and married into a Mexican-Jewish family. Over the years I’ve had many conversations with my Mexican-Jewish family and friends about how they feel left out of the Latinx community. Most Latinx stories in books and movies never mention that there is this little community out there speaking Spanish and Yiddish, operating taquerías (Kosher tacos, of course) and living the life of the diaspora of the diaspora (from Poland to Mexico to Los Angeles). I wanted to give them representation in my novel, hoping to illustrate how diverse our Latinx community is.
Is your personal life or people you know reflected in any of the characters? —Torrey C.
All my characters are composites of people I know. Family members, friends, colleagues, strangers, and me, of course, are my inspiration. I made up most of the story, but I included some family anecdotes (with a heavy dose of fiction) and asked my characters to play them out. On a personal level, I did have complicated fertility issues, but I never stole embryos! That’s the sort of caper that I can only imagine in a fictional story where you want to take conflict to an extreme. My dad was obsessed with the Weather Channel during a bout of depression. He’d call me in L.A. every day from Mexico City to tell me things like, “Take an umbrella; it’s going to rain.” He was definitely my favorite weather person.
Considering what a good role model for the right guy Oscar is, why was it that all of his daughters fell in love with the wrong man? —thepaperchase 2.
My dad was a very loving husband who stayed in his marriage until he died. He was a great role model, but in my experience, it’s not the only thing you need to choose the right partner and have a good marriage. I’m on my third. And for me, the third time’s the charm.
Who was the most difficult character to write? —Diana P.
Keila. I wanted her to be unlikeable to some degree, to come off as if she didn’t care about Oscar and her marriage. But I also wanted her to love her family tremendously and to reveal this contradiction slowly, so much so that the reader would suddenly realize that she really was a complex character. I learned a lot about character building.
What inspired you to include issues related to fertility, IVF, and “stolen embryos”? —Diana P.
You wouldn’t know some women in my family have had serious fertility issues by looking at our family photos, dozens of smiling faces in a multigenerational assembly. But we have. Aunts, cousins, myself. So I addressed the subject. Of course, the embryo theft is taking fiction to an extreme. In my family we’d never engage in that kind of behavior. But in fiction bad ideas make great stories, and writers are always finding ways to get their characters into trouble concocting all sorts of capers and crimes. Just read any play by Shakespeare. Most likely, if the story had continued past 2016, Patricia would have had the babies, she and Olivia would be raising them, and Felix would have found out. The consequences of their act will loom over their destiny forever.
Hi Maria! Was L.A. Weather planned to be a book from the very beginning or maybe a TV show?? Loved the book, thank you! —Svetlana W.
I wrote my two previous novels as screenplays first to practice my dialogue. In L.A. WEATHER I chose not to write a screenplay first, but to write the story in prose as a calendar of sorts. Still, I am a very visual writer and since I was writing about Los Angeles, I developed some of the imagery and descriptions with a cinematic feel.
How much of your own family inspired the book? —Bronna S.
A lot. There are family anecdotes galore, but always passed through the prism of my imagination to change, distort, exaggerate, and fictionalize reality. In general, we’ve had a few disastrous years like the one I put the Alvarados through. With so many relatives, the incidents just pile up. Anne Lamott advises in her book BIRD BY BIRD, “Write as if your parents were dead.” And I complied.
You tackled some major topics in the book, how did you land on the major themes you wanted to include? —Diana P.
Every topic I write about is relevant to me in some way. The end of love. Fraternal love. Family secrets. Betrayal. Motherhood. Climate change. What it is to be Latinx in Los Angeles. If I write about what I care about, what I know about, then I will be engaged in the story. If as a writer you’re going to spend five years writing a novel, you’d better like the characters and the topics in the book!
What is the primary “takeaway” you hope readers will leave with after reading L.A. Weather? —Diana P.
The primary takeaway is that family life is messy. You may not see eye-to-eye with your siblings, or you might think your parents have unforgivable flaws. You know everyone all too well, for better or for worse. But you share a complex history, and it would be awful to have to face a difficult year alone. It’s so much better having the support of your family members, however imperfect they are. Because so are you. The pandemic really drove this home. Some of us ended up living under one roof again, while others found ourselves missing the family home and not being able to even visit. Many of us have lost relatives (sadly, I lost my favorite uncle to COVID). All of a sudden this virus has put the value of family front and center. In LA WEATHER, the Alvarados face a disastrous year and realize that they need one another to survive it. In the process, they strengthen the bonds that were starting to fray.
Oscar and Keila were married for a long time so why after such a “short” period of “worse” was she willing to quit on her marriage?
Oscar’s descent was dramatic. He went from exemplary (and very vital) husband and father to a shell of a man in a matter of months. This had Keila in complete shock. The twins’ near drowning served as a trigger for her to ask for a divorce. But she never left. And she never really asked Oscar to leave. Putting the idea of divorce on the table shook things up enough that they both became willing—in their own ways—to look at their relationship.
What books are on your nightstand right now waiting to be read? Is there an upcoming book you can’t wait to get your hands on? —Lindsey G.
I’m reading THE CHICKEN SISTERS by K.J. Dell’Antonia. I’m passionate about family turmoil and these two sisters are going to war! I also have on my nightstand OLGA DIES DREAMING by Xochitl González, OF WOMEN AND SALT by Gabriela García, WORLD TRAVEL by Anthony Bourdain, THE DISTANCE BETWEEN US by Reyna Grande, AURA by Carlos Fuentes, CONFIESO QUE HE VIVIDO by Pablo Neruda, and LA TREGUA by Mario Benedetti.
What are some of the hobbies you enjoy when you’re not writing or reading? —Lindsey G.
I’m a big foodie. I love to cook with my husband (he is the chef, I just help). And what really inspires me is taking pictures. I’m not a pro, more like an enthusiast, but I just love looking at odd corners of the world. Check out my Instagram page (@mariaescandon) to see some of those pictures.
If this were to be made into a TV adaptation, who would you like to see cast for all of the characters? —Lindsey G.
If I had a magic wand, Oscar would be played by Alfred Molina. I haven’t thought about the rest.
I saw a great interview with you and Jorge Ramos on Hampton Book and just wondered about your writing! Do you write in English or Spanish first, when you are piecing a story together? —Ann A.
My native language is Spanish. So, I find myself thinking in Spanish and writing in English. It’s not easy but it works. Even though I have learned a lot since I moved to the U.S. in my twenties, I don’t think I’ll ever master the language completely, but I keep learning, one novel at a time. With any family, there’s always something going on!
Will there be a follow-up book on the Alvarado family? —Katie W.
I don’t know yet.
Were Kaila’s parents or grandparents “cousins”? I could not get over that part when she mentioned that in her session with the psychologist! —Patrycja J.
Yes! My inspiration was a really old married couple I met once when I was young who escaped the Holocaust and ended up in Mexico. They were cousins. It seems I could not get over that either!
All of your characters are so diverse and handle their problems so differently! Which one is your favorite? —Courtney D.
That’s a tough one. Characters are like your children. You love them all the same but for different reasons. But I did enjoy writing Olivia the best.
Will you be coming to the Miami International Book Fair? —Jennifer M.
So far, yes. It will depend on how the pandemic evolves.
Where can we get the recipes for all of the amazing food?! —Karen S.
Check out Diana Kennedy’s cookbooks. She’s incredible.
Should we assume that all goes smoothly with the stolen embryos? Or maybe we’ll get to hear more about this in another book? Great story! —Kim M.
Well, as Eric tells Patricia, “The more I think about it, the more I believe this scheme could work only if we were living in Telenovelaland.” Personally, I don’t think a secret of such magnitude could be kept from Felix. It’s a disaster waiting to happen, sooner or later, unless… I leave that resolution to the reader’s imagination.
Why divorce as the main theme? I fell in love with Maria and Oscar’s story. I bought in as a reader then it switched to Olivia’s story. When did you decide to move from the elderly couple to tell Olivia’s story? —Erika P.
Keila and Oscar’s marriage prevails, while their three daughters’ marriages succumb for different reasons. This is a study of the many ways love evolves and in some cases ends. I needed to tell Olivia’s story, and Claudia’s and Patricia’s, to illustrate this.
Why did you decide to make Claudia a kleptomaniac? Being that she was so successful, was she trying to fill some sort of void? —Cheryl F.
Claudia starts out as someone with a huge sense of entitlement. I wanted her to suffer from Kleptomania (she can’t resist the urge to steal stuff, even if she can afford the item and doesn’t need it) because it’s a mental disorder that goes very well with someone with a sense of entitlement, aside from her idea that she has total control of her life. Of course, as you now know, destiny will teach her a lesson in humility with the brain tumor. Not everything in her life is under her control!