As told to Trina Sargalski
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- Author Jennine Capo Crucet/ Andre Vippolis
Jennine Capo Crucet is the author of How to Leave Hialeah, a collection of short stories rooted firmly in Capo Crucet’s Miami surroundings. Capo Crucet currently lives in Los Angeles, but she grew up in Hialeah as the daughter of Cuban-American exiles. Her references to tricked out cars, El Dorado furniture and Noche Buena feasts will make local readers feel at home, but the stories will keep them reading.
One of Capo Crucet’s biggest inspirations is her grandmother: “The joke in our family is that she talks too much, but in truth, talking is her gift. But she is also kind of a big liar (Sorry, Abuela!) and she’s always exaggerating in her stories, which is probably what made me write fiction, where lying and exaggeration are encouraged.”
Capo Crucet is the first Latina author to win the John Simmons Short Fiction Award and author Julia Alvarez adds, ”This is definitely a young writer to watch for.”
TS: You’ll be back in Miami for the Book Fair this weekend. You haven’t lived here since 1999. What are some things you’re looking forward to on your return visit? What are some things you really don’t miss at all about Miami?
Capo Crucet: I still get back to Miami about two or three times a year, but this will be my first time back since my book was released, so it’s extra-exciting. I’m looking forward to all the usual things that happen when I come back. Within 24 hours of me getting into Miami, my mom takes me to the same beauty salon we’ve been going to for years to do something about my hair, which is very curly and not very well cared for (Sorry, Juan Carlos — see you soon!). Almost immediately upon the plane landing, we go to La Carreta and I drink 3 mamey shakes and eat a heaping plate of Arroz Imperial and a huge croqueta preparada and fall asleep on the car ride home. I am looking forward to that.
I used to say that I don’t miss Miami traffic, but now that I’ve moved to LA, I actually do miss Miami traffic. I’ll take the Palmetto over the 10 any day.
TS: You attended the Miami Book Fair International when you were growing up. You have been writing since you were a child, but do you remember some specific instance at the Book Fair that cemented your desire to be an author?
Capo Crucet: You know, I don’t remember much from the Book Fair itself (sad, right?), but I do remember taking the People Mover to get there to avoid parking in downtown, and that one year — I must have been about 8 or 9 — I wandered off in the wrong direction while in a station and walked right into some unauthorized area. I was daydreaming and heard someone yelling, “Miss! Miss!” behind me but I didn’t really think he could be yelling at me. No one had ever called me “Miss.” Eventually I heard my mother yell my name, and at that point I turned around and saw that I was very far from where I was legally allowed to be standing. My mom was cracking up though! She yelled at the Metro dude trying to get me, “She’s not a miss!” and couldn’t stop laughing. Maybe that was the beginning of a story right there.
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TS: Your story, “Noche Buena” evocatively portrays a Cuban-American teenager’s experience of this yearly tradition, from the “200 pounds of food” on the table to the parading of new cars in the driveway. In the story, the narrator’s sister wants to spend some of Christmas Eve with her boyfriend’s family. You write: “No one had ever escaped Noche Buena with my family. I don’t think we even knew how to share family, even if it was just loaning them out until dinner time.” How much of this story was drawn from your own family experience?
Capo Crucet: You didn’t bring boyfriends to my family’s Noche Buena lightly. You had to be really serious about the guy, and him about you, for him to come. It was assumed that anyone you brought would be your husband at some point, so if you brought a guy one year and another guy the next, people started to talk. Plus, you could pretty much guarantee that the poor guy was gonna get teased by my uncle Hector, which, though funny, always pissed the guy off (which kinda told you he was “the one.”) My husband’s first Noche Buena was the one after we were married — I figured you couldn’t be more serious about a guy than married to him (Manny[the narrator in the story] says something similar to this in the story, actually.)
“Noche Buena” the story is a complete fiction, but in real life, there is a struggle, I think, in trying to split yourself between two families with long-standing traditions for that night. We’re getting better at “sharing,” but it’s still no fun to spend that night apart because it forces us to admit things are changing and we’re getting older.
My husband, I should mention, is American, so my family’s domination of the 24th goes uncontested. Woohoo!
TS: Trying to break away from Miami and then staying away, despite family pressure and nostalgia for home, is a strong theme in the lives of many people here, especially those from Hispanic families. You write in your online bio, “I have not lived full time in the Miami area since 1999, though I’m slowly working my way back there.” What do you mean by “slowly working my way back there?” How do you experience the pull of Miami, even after so many years away?
Capo Crucet: What I mean is I plan on moving back, even if it takes me a while. Every move that’s taken me away has been for school or school-related — college, grad school, my husband’s grad school, and now his post-doc out here in LA — but I know I want to be in Miami and be close to my family. If I ever have kids, they need to be Miami Kids, otherwise I won’t know how to talk to them.
The pull is the local section of the Herald, which I read online every day to see what’s going on. The pull is when I’m traveling and people ask me, “Where are you from?” and I answer “I’m living in {Insert City Here}” and then compulsively add, “But I’m really from Miami.” The pull is that my imagination lives in Hialeah; it’s the setting for all my dreams, for almost every story I’ve ever written. In my head, I’m already there.
TS: Give three words to describe your experience living in South Florida.
Capo Crucet: Mamey shake? Yes!