A Conversation with Tomas Moniz
BY RHEA BRYCE
Tomas Moniz is a latinx writer living in East Oakland, CA. His debut novel, Big Familia, was a finalist for the 2020 PEN/Hemingway and the LAMBDA. His new novel, All Friends Are Necessary, was published by Algonquin Books in June. He teaches at Berkeley City College and the Antioch MFA program. He has stuff on the internet but loves penpals: PO Box 3555, Berkeley CA 94703. He promises to write back.
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Rhea Bryce: I loved reading All Friends Are Necessary. I understand that you started writing in the voice of Efren not for a novel but for a zine? I was curious, what was the first scene you wrote?
Tomas Moniz: The first story I wrote is actually the opening story with Efren and Metal Matt running down the beach naked into the water. I have a friend named Metal Matt and I love his name so much, I used it.
RB: That’s amazing. Does he introduce himself to people as Metal Matt?
TM: Yes, that’s his name. It’s funny, every time I read it, I always think of him even though he’s so different. I mean, it’s not him in any way, shape, or form now in the novel but it’s just my little secret that I have when I think about the novel.
RB: What stuck with you in this first story, and what was the process of realizing you needed to write more on it?
TM: The writing process for this whole novel was really different for me. Sometimes, in the project you’re working on, you have an idea and you’re going forward. You have steps. My experience with this novel was having a bunch of different pieces that I started to realize were all one piece. I had written a bunch of it randomly. I had stories that I wrote for a different zine after the pandemic that I realized were Efren’s voice but in a different name. So for me, the hard work was figuring out how to put them together. It was a mess, but it was my mess.
RB: What made you notice that these voices were the same character?
TM: It was his relationship to the contemporary events happening around him. Part one was really about rock music and trying to get sober. It was the time where Trump got elected and Nazis were rallying in the streets. I thought, what’s the point of writing? But you have to deal with this shit. I was trying to find a way. The character was trying to find a way.
Then the second thing I wrote was trying to find a way through the pandemic; making peace with your neighborhood and the people in your neighborhood that you maybe wouldn’t have met normally, because now everyone’s walking the streets. I felt it was the same type of vibe—finding peace. Those were the two stories.
Then, some personal stuff happened: an intimate family member passed away. Dealing with grief, I didn’t write anything for a year and a half. Then, when I came back to it, I realized that was the armature, that was what could connect the two parts. So then it was just about revising which was difficult because it was revising something that initially didn’t connect into something that connected. If I were to critique my own growth, I think there are moments I could still go back and smooth over or develop more. At some point you gotta let it go.
RB: I really like what you said about a character trying to find their way because, when reading it, I could feel the optimism. The characters felt well intentioned, even when they made mistakes. I think it’s so easy to rely on bad intentions to create tension.
TM: At the book launch in Oakland, you asked me about writing a story with no villain, that in the novel there is no antagonist, no bad guy. But, a few friends and I were having drinks and someone said, “I know what the villain of this story is. Grief. Grief is the thing that is pushing everyone to behave badly.” The tragedy, the grief, and the pain all collectively make the characters act out.
RB: When you were writing and felt that you were pulling from your own life, did you do anything specific to separate yourself from the character?
TM: I never write about the specifics in my own life, but I do lean into the feelings. It’s not a memoir, so if I’m writing some juicy, playful, fun scene, I can think of my own experiences in those moments. When I write, I lean into the spirit of it rather than the specifics.
RB: At your book launch, you had so many friends there. And the character Efren has so many friends; in a way that feels more akin to real life than a lot of books that just have three very close friends who don’t talk to anyone else. Was it challenging to create this community web?
TM: Trying to differentiate voices, attitudes, and appearances in a book is really difficult. For me, it’s easy to write dialogue, but then I really want to go back and make sure that everyone speaks slightly differently or in their own way. They need to approach each other in their own specific language. So that was hard. Sometimes, when I would revise I would realize that people spoke too similarly or that people were talking when they didn’t need to talk. I play around with the amount of characters in a scene just to see what I can do.
RB: Do you think of each of Efren’s friends as serving a specific purpose?
TM: I didn’t, but I see how it works. I don’t really do a lot of pre-thinking. I don’t think, “I want these three characters to represent something.” I just write what I enjoy, and then afterwards I revise. That’s where I get the most important part of writing, where I figure out if I need more of this character, less of that character, or if I need to stay in a scene a little bit more. Those are the important revision choices. But when I write, I am not goal-bound.
RB: I have a similar process.
TM: In this novel, I tried to add more plot. I always struggle with balancing character-driven writing and plot.
RB: I find it difficult too. One of the biggest plot twists was that Metal Matt ends up having a child. Did you plan that?
TM: I was so happy when I realized that was going to happen. I was like, “Yes, I got it.” I was struggling because I needed something to happen. Something needs to change. I realized that this is what allows Efren to go from receiving care and support from his family and friends to being able to offer care and support to his friends.
RB: Absolutely. So, one thing I loved was the sex scenes. They were playful and also very kind. What was it like to write about all these different types of intimacy?
TM: I appreciate that you said they were kind because I’m definitely trying to move away from trauma-based sexuality. That’s a reality for so many and an important literary device. However, when I wrote the first section, it was all about Efren hooking up with a lot of different people. I think there’s a vulnerability. In a way, we can see people’s more intimate desires and natures in those moments, especially in the moments right before or right after. For example, when one of his lovers takes her shirt off and she gets stuck. He helps her. That’s the best. There’s nothing sexier than that moment. Or Terrance and him going to sleep on the couch afterwards. For me personally, those are the moments that reveal character.
RB: There’s also this juxtaposition of sex and grief that is pretty unique to your book. How was it to write about those two themes at the same time?
TM: You’re the second person to ask me this question. I never really thought about it. Ariel Gore, who wrote a book I really love called We Were Witches, said, “Efren deals with his grief through sex,” and I thought, “Yes, it’s so obvious, now.” I didn’t initially plan that.
Clearly, I must have been in my mind, and one of the ways we can distract ourselves or heal is to find connection. I remember the scene with Genevieve. Initially, that character was almost nameless, just a scene I wrote. When they hooked up in the parking garage, it was a separate story that had nothing to do with the novel. But Genevieve evolved into a more fully developed character that fosters his grief.
RB: It must be fun to hear people’s responses because so much comes from the subconscious.
TM: Oh, yeah. It’s always kind of awkward when people ask questions and you’re like, I don’t know how to answer but I’m just going to nod and say yes.
RB: In both writing sex scenes and just writing friendship scenes, did you feel that the process of writing or the relationships were dramatically different with gender?
TM: I tried to write in a way that allowed me to envision the world I want to be a part of. The gender binary is obviously a real life issue, and how we engage with people in the world, but with my writing, I want to be more fluid. I love to lean into that fluidity, but I also want to be true. I don’t want to limit my characters to a prescription such as if you’re a man or a woman this is how you should act. So, in the first draft, I just write and it’s usually the stereotypical character behavior that comes up. For example, I tend to always have my characters cry. Then someone pointed it out to me. I went back and searched for “cry” and “smile.” The word smile comes up like seventy-five times. When I revise, I look at each instance and ask, what can they do differently? How can I be consistent with this character whenever they get nervous, but have them do something instead of smiling?
RB: On the idea of fluidity, I love how all the characters have unique relationships that don’t feel stereotypical.
TM: That’s what I was going for. The people I know in the world are all like that, but what gets represented in popular writing is so binary, so black and white. Maybe it’s part of my identity of being mixed race. There are all the ways in which you get seen by others versus when you see yourself and so I’m okay with the chaos.
RB: I feel like when talking about friendship, people gender it a lot. I hear about there not being as many books about male friendship as female friendship. I don’t even know if that’s true, but it’s talked about a lot.
TM: In The Write Minded Podcast, one of the co-hosts, Grant Faulkner, pointed out that every book he’s read about male friendship has a big adventure, and that mine was the first that feels like a “domestic friendship.” I think these stereotypes are problematic, where male friendships tend to be depicted as being all about actions. I want to push against the stereotype.
RB: I love that too. It’s funny you say this because the book I’m working on is an adventure story about female friendship, so it’s the opposite here. Though in mine there are a lot of frenemy dynamics.
TM: That’s something I would have liked to include more elements of. I didn’t do this as much as I should have.
RB: Now that you say that, it does make me think that there’s very little jealousy in this book. Was that on purpose?
TM: It wasn’t on purpose. This is where I’m writing my fantasy, where no people are jealous. I didn’t want to center jealousy because that’s usually the stereotype. There’s always some big fallout. I understand that, in terms of narrative, it’s a plot device. You get into a big fight, you make up. We love those stories. So I wanted the big drama to be something that didn’t affect their relationship.
RB: One thing that’s exciting for me in your book is that everything is so Bay Area. There are so many great places and conflicts that are specific to here. Did you do anything in particular to evoke the Oakland atmosphere?
TM: The Bay Area gets a bad rap in the mainstream media from the tech world and its impacts on the community to the issues around the unhoused or around crime or side shows, even the issues around professional sports. Oakland seems to take all the blame. I recognize these tensions and problems, but at the same time I want to celebrate Oakland and the Bay Area’s rich history and vibrant culture as well.
RB: Do you write in these physical places?
TM: I did write some scenes in the Oakland Coliseum when I went to baseball games. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to the Coliseum but if you ever get there, peep your head into the men’s bathroom. There’s literally like one hundred yards of these long porcelain pee troughs. It’s the craziest thing. It’s endless. You’re never going to find that anywhere anymore. It’s so 1970s, I love it. I’m very sad about the Oakland A’s. I would go write papers or read a book or, you know, edit my stories.
RB: Maybe you’ll have to get tickets to the Oakland Roots.
TM: I do have Roots tickets and Oakland Ballers tickets.
RB: You include a lot of nature in the novel which pairs so well with the Bay Area.
TM: You know, I’m not a big walker. During the pandemic, everyone’s walking and that’s where I got to know the parks around my neighborhood. Dimond Park in East Oakland is phenomenal: redwoods and creeks which run from the hills all the way to the bay. I spoke to the ranger about fern life in the park and the park does have a few ferns, but since I’m writing fiction, I created this magical little fern grove for the characters in the novel.
RB: I just heard Melissa Broder speak at Mrs. Dalloway’s bookstore in Berkeley, and her book, Death Valley, has this cactus. She didn’t pick the right cactus for the area and had an existential crisis when she found out. She couldn’t change the cactus and wrote it into her book that it was a magical cactus that should not grow in the area.
TM: That’s so funny. In the back of my book I acknowledge that I’m not a botanist. I also used these quotes about ferns from all these old fern books, and my editor told me, “Don’t worry about it, you can make it up.” The novel has a middle section that’s more narratively non-traditional, a series of small prose vignettes from the perspective of Efren and his friends. I modeled the form off of how ferns propagate by sending little spores out into the world and hoping they survive, hoping they find a home.
RB: So why ferns?
TM: They are so amazingly beautiful. Fiddlehead ferns: the way they unfurl. I was obsessed with this image of a fern opening up. I even wrote an essay in Lithub about ferns and houseplants and grief.
RB: When I was a kid, I loved ferns because they’re kind of recursive. A big fern has little strands that look like little ferns and those little strands have even littler strands that look like ferns. So your novel has a happy ending, did you want to end it that way?
TM: There are never happy endings so yes, I did.
RB: I thought it was done so well because it was happy but it was also realistic. I think it’s easy for writers to make endings unhappier so that it feels real.
TM: Exactly! And there’s nothing more joyous than a little baby eating an apple. I mean, come on. That’s where I end the novel, I’m gonna stop it right there.