Report from Santa Fe; Allende, Isabel

Report from Santa Fe is made possible in part by grants from the members of the National Education Association of New Mexico, an organization of professionals who believe that investing in public education is an investment in our state's economic future. By a grant from the Healy Foundation, Taos, New Mexico. I'm Lorene Mills, and welcome to Report from Santa Fe. Our guests today are two marvelous couple and two brilliant writers. Isabella Yendes. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for having us. And her wonderful husband, Willie Gordon. Thank you so much. Thank you. Let me give a little background. I think most people know you is about, but you've come to Santa Fe is guest at the Landon Foundation and did a dazzling presentation. You are a world famous author. You have sold over 51 million copies of your books. They're available in 30 languages. Your first book that was such a sensation is the House of the Spirits. There are many,

many others I won't show them all, but one that we will dwell on today of love and shadows. That's my second novel. Your second novel and it has a lot to do with how you two met. You'll tell us a story in a minute. Your most recent book is this wonderful memoir called The Some of Our Days. And we'll look at some of your other books like Afrid ID, things like that in a minute. But 20 years ago you had the delightful pleasure of meeting Willie. And so welcome to Santa Fe. Excuse me. He had the delightful pleasure of meeting me. Exactly. But perhaps it was one of those happy serendipitous for you. Both were lucky to meet you. You are in your professionally. You've started out as a lawyer and a community activist, which has gotten sort of fallen. I love the term Mimo Bama. Yes, yes. And you have recently started to write your websites as international man and mysteries in both senses of the words. So you've written a couple of mysteries

that Chinese jars and the king of the bottom. King of the bottom. Yes. And you're working on more. And so here we have two wonderful people who also write and maybe, but first I want you to tell me what this book of love and shadows has to do with how you two met. And you have to tell this story. You've told me that there are 50 versions of the story. So you may give us any one of the 50s. Well, I'm going to tell you because she has too many stories about how this happened. I, on my 50th birthday, a very good friend of mine, Celeste Patat was a professor of Latin American literature at San Jose State gave me this book of love and shadows to read. And she said it was time that I got involved in Latin American literature. So I took it to Italy with me and I read it. And I wrote a postcard that I really wanted to meet this author because she talked about love the way the same way that I perceived it. So when I got back, I called her and I said, well done. Did you get

my postcard? And she said, you liar, you never sent me a postcard. And that was the end of our conversation. And then two days later, she called me and says, I got your postcard. And if you want to meet Isabelle, you have to be down here in two days because she's going to be here. So I went and I met Isabelle and we had dinner. And I don't know. The bell sounded and we never really left each other after that. Now the magician says, oh, then with mirrors. So I'm going to have the reflection of that story from Isabelle's point of view. I was in a book tour running around. A book tour usually are. And I never do any social life at all. I don't go out with strangers when I'm in a book tour. But that night I had a dream. And in the dream was this man that I had met a dinner. And so when he invited me the next day for lunch, I went out with him because I had had the dream. And we hooked up. I asked him to tell me the story of his life.

And I fell in love with the story. And in lust with a man who was the last heterosexual bachelor in San Francisco. And he was available. I had been divorced for three months. So I really needed a guy. So I thought just just for one night. And then here I am, 20 years later. I think that the dreaded word commitment came up early in the relationship. Well, because you know, I had been married for a long time. And I thought that when you sort of fall in love with someone is for marriage. And I asked him immediately the next day when he was driving me to the airport. Do we have some kind of commitment? And he had to pull over. He almost fainted. What did you say? No. He said no. And I said well I don't have any time to waste. So I took the plane and decided to forget him. But I couldn't. So I came back

without an invitation because he didn't like me that much. He was terrified. And after a week or so, I stayed and stayed and stayed. And then I needed a green card. So I forced him into marriage. No, that's true. Now when you told your son about this relationship, what did he say? Well, I said that I had fallen in love with a guy in the tour. And he said at your age, I was 45. And you had gone, if I would make a back to your, one of your first jobs, when you were translating romance novels from English and Dismanish, and you had the hood smile. You had the nerve to change some of the family. The hero wins characters. They were more independent. And you even changed the ending somehow. And you have said that sometimes you don't believe in happy endings. But do we have a happy ending? Well, we have a happy continuum. Let's put it that way. Oh, that's lovely. That's fair. But also it has not been easy. We both come from very different cultures than we've had a lot

of problems. So I think that... Well, we're surviving. It's okay. And you also suffered both of you terrible losses early in the middle of the church. I don't know about that. They were both lost our daughters. They were painful. And that's something you never really get over. No. But it's something in many cases will separate people. It does. Your case is... It probably worse if you're having a child together from what I've seen. My daughter was involved in drugs. So I always knew that she was going to have a not a happy end. But you know, I had a very hyperactive son who was bipolar. I'm very difficult. And that... I mean, in some of our days there's this big issue about going to the therapist all the time. And the truth of the matter is that the reason for that was my son who's now not in the book.

So everybody thinks that we have spent all this money and time and therapy. But really, the cause of it is not there. But you know, it's a very interesting thing. In the beginning, when Isabel and I got together, I was going to write the infinite plan. And I always intended to be a writer. That was his life. And so, but I wanted to retire because it was too hyperactive, too busy, too involved. And so we got down and we started talking about this. And she started asking me these questions. And then I told her what I was going to do. And she said, oh, let me do what I'll do a better job. But he always wanted to write. So a few years ago, when he decided to write, he really took it very seriously. And at the beginning, he wrote an abominable novel that I hated about a person called flawed. It was called flawed. And it was about an over six dwarf. Give me

a break. And then I suggested that he should write mysteries because he knows so much about that. And then you had that you saw the albino Chinese. Yeah, in the corner, it's true. I was sort of well, that came to you crystallized. I mean, you know, things happen when you're writing and you're open. Things just happen. And they fall into place. And that's that always happens. It's happened the whole time that I've been writing. And the same thing happens to her. You just things happen. I did. I see I was writing this book. And it was based on a short story. I mean, I was based on a newspaper article that I read 45 years ago in the New York Times. And about a bum that they found in a tuxedo passed out on the sidewalk. And so when I wrote my I wrote a short story based on and then people said, see, this is better than your raunchy book, why don't you write an album? So I started to do that. And then things just started to happen. Like I needed a character

who had an herb shop. And I see this Chinese man in a suit, but he's an albino on the street corner. And I said, that's my herb shop on. And I mean, there are 20 things happen like that during the course of the time I was writing this book. And the same thing with the second. You know, they say that the universe conspires to help you when you are in a project like this. And it really has happened to both of us. We work at home in the same place and at the same time. But we are never in each other's faces. And we share stories, but we don't get involved in each other's books. So he just finished a third novel that a lot of people have already read. He hasn't shown it to me yet. And he hasn't read my book that I just finished. Well, I know that your regime, your writing regime is brutal. Brutal. Brutal. Brutal. You start on the magical day of January 8th and you clear your calendar and you hold up and do all your research and write and rewrite. I mean, it really is grueling.

Is your schedule so demanding? No, what happens is that I carry her bags everywhere in the world. And I write when I can. I write in airports. I write in bathrooms. I write in hotel lobbies. I write and my books have been written in every country that we've been in in the world. Because I write by hand and then I put it in the computer later. And then I, so I just, I have a totally different regime. And I'm so hyper anyway. And as Isabelle says, I can only sit down for 11 minutes at a time anyway. But I have a very funny story about this first book, Vlog, about it is about in part about the over six dwarf. And she made me put it in the trunk and told me to write mysteries because that's what I was familiar with. So I do that and I get my first book published and I'm at the in Spain. And I'm interviewed in the radio, my first interview. And they asked me if this book that I've gotten in front of me, the Chinese jars is my first book.

And I say, no, my first book was about the over six dwarf. Well, all the rest of the questions for the whole hour and everywhere else I went in the world for about the over six dwarf. So now I written the book about the over six dwarf. And as very soon after Isabelle saw this, she started talking about the over six dwarf. So, but she said, you should never write this book. You should always just talk about it. Yeah. Yeah, that's the kind of stuff that is a wonderful conversation point, you know? No, this is a matter of pride. I read the book, I've written the book about the over six dwarf. And does it still have the original title, flawed? No. No. Can you tell us the title? Yeah, that's a dwarf. I've learned so much about you through your memoirs, the very magnificent book Paula about your daughter. And then again, I want to show this one the sum of our days, because you wrote it, the structure was sort of a letter to Paula to tell us what had happened

without the family. And for us, the readers, it's so intimate. And you say at one point that it's not the secrets that you know, it's not the truth that you tell that makes you vulnerable and it's the secrets that you don't tell that make you vulnerable. There are not many secrets, even to be read here. It's true, you gave your family members a choice to opt in or opt out. And when they opted out, you had to redo the whole thing. Yeah. But how comfortable is it for your family to have their lives novelistically and brilliantly portrayed? You know, what has happened is that, for example, my daughter-in-law, Laurie, is a very private person. And she was just appalled at the idea that her life would be out there. But she accepted to be in the book. And she found out after the book was published that many people come to her, people she has never met in her life, stopping the street, to share with her either the problems that are similar or just tell her about or ask questions. And it's always with a good

intention, always with kindness. She has never had a bad, a bad encounter of any kind. And I think that that's very reassuring. And for you, Willie, to have the infinite plan, this book about your family and your life, but not, of course, it meant more, but a fictionalized version. Did she fall in love with your story before she fell in love with you? I don't know. That's what she said. And then how do you, this, this novel is so, it's so universal. It's so all encompassing. How are you happy with it? And is it what you would have done? You left her right. Well, obviously it's her story, but emotionally, it's a very true story. I mean, the facts are changed to protect the innocent, as they say. But it's a very emotionally true story, and I'm very happy with it. Tell us a little about the story. If you look in my website, there's a bunch of

WeMCGordon.com. And there's a biography of me. And basically, it's what you find if you read the infinite plan. My father was a wild Australian. He was a painter, a writer, a inventor, a religion called the infinite plan. And he even came through Santa Fe and through Albuquerque in the late 30s and early 40s. And I was with him. My first trip through here was in 1940. And I remember very distinctly in Albuquerque, they sent me to a daycare center. And I crept in my pants. And I couldn't, I didn't want to tell anybody, but they were bad, bad dream. And I remember that and it was snowing outside. And you didn't know it. I didn't know that. But anyway, it was a dollar to get in. And my father would then dress in a tuxedo with a spotlight on him in a tent. And he would talk and talk and talk with an orange hanging from a thread

on the ceiling. And then people would leave and they'd have to buy the infinite plan, which was a buck also. And for a boy, I mean, if you live in a place, you live in a little community, the world was our community. And so I had this tremendous sense of freedom and adventure. And that's the kind of guy he was. So for all his faults and all his baloney, he gave me a gift, the gift of freedom. And it was an incredible thing. And the idea is that there aren't any limits to what you can do. You just do it. I mean, he was a man who had no education, no money, but he still did everything he wanted to do. And I, that's the lesson I learned. And so you started that and you grew up in Los Angeles in pretty much a barrio. Well, I grew up in the barrio because my father had a lover who was his business manager on this thing. And my mother was a very sort of withdrawn person. And this Mexican woman who was the his business associate, when he died, she just took over and she put us in one of her houses

in Los Angeles and she collected the rent from the county. She was a witch. She eventually went to jail for black magic. But I mean, she was a character. And in my third book in the ugly dwarf, she comes out and I get my revenge. So I imagine you with your novelist consciousness hearing this story of his life and going, yeah. But also I was, I didn't know anything about the United States. And this seemed to me like a very California story, the story of a time. The things that he had lived, represented in my mind so much what had happened in the country during the time of the Vietnam War, the civil rights, the gay movement, all the things that happened in Willis' life were very very like cliche is almost for me as a foreigner. So I was fascinated and I was fascinated with a place with California's. And you live in Northern California together and you have sort of recreated a

Chilean country home. Well, that's Isabelle. No, but he built the house. We have put together family with people who are not even blood related. But we feel that we are a little tribe. And then at one point, Willie was obsessed with building a house that would look that like his idea of the house of the spirits. And so he built a house on top of a hill that looks very Spanish or Chilean from the countryside. And it's been like a place where we all gather. It's like the center of this little tribe. And your life is an effect seasonal. Winter you spend riding from January until the summer you spend riding. And then it's, you know, the tribe. And then it's the extrovert of time. When we have the tribe and we have to travel and do all the promotion of the books and all that. But it's a very interesting life. We can't

complain and we are still healthy. We are old, but healthy. No, you're in that. He always says every morning he says to me, we are falling apart together. And I said, no, you are falling apart. I'm growing old. Believe me, we're falling apart. Well, what are the challenges of working together and maintaining relationships? Actually, we don't work together. And we, you know, I'm a hack. Care well. I grew up with an old Stanley gardener and Elery Queen and Raymond Chandler and Deschel Hammond. I just, I'm a mystery writer. And she helped me get to that place. And my mind works that way. And I'm a lawyer. And so I'm always fine. She puts pieces together. And she talks about the big saga as I was telling somebody last night. She talks about the big saga. And I start, I take the minutia, the little guy. And out of that, if there's anything universal, it comes

out of the littleness of people. And she does this big, expansive thing. So we don't compete. I tell everybody who wants to know, I say, I'm just a flea in the elephant's ass. And then I say, angry. And then I say, I'm a fly on the on the screen skirt. Sounds better. So it's not a matter of competition. And we just work so different. And I get my inspiration. We probably get our inspiration in the same place. You get it from a newspaper. You're looking for something and the universe inspires it and it drops it in your lap. But that happens to every writer. So you really work with mysteries or genre. And you work with the cosmic mysteries. Because you say in your room, in your books, there's always room for the unknown. There's always room for mystery, the grand. But the daily routine is interesting because it's a dance in which we are together without stepping on each other's toes. I never have the feeling that he's on my face.

I don't know if he if I'm on your face. But we just dance around each other with a dog in the middle. And it works. Wonderful. Speaking of the dog, you spoke about how being such a famous writer, your works are constantly open to interpretation and graduate students are writing VCs like 500 pages on the meeting of one word and you were tell us about Barabbas in Well, in the house of the spirits, there's a dog, black huge that dies killed by a butcher. And I have like three or four thesis of students about what the dog means. What does it symbolize? And one of them is about the male energy in the house, the other one is about the military, who whatever. Just a dog. Sometimes it's just a dog. Yeah. Yes. In your early relationship, you had mentioned you had faxed him a contract. Yeah. Dare you tell us a little ahead. Well, when we met and we I had to finish the tour and he told me that we had no commitment.

I went home and my son said that why don't you just go and spend some time with him and take him out of your system and go on with your life? And I thought it was a very good idea and I had a fax. It was there were no sellers at the time and so or no emails or any of that kind of stuff. So I faxed him a sort of contract with the kind of stuff that I wanted from a relationship in a column and a match shorter column with a few things I was willing to give. And he thought it was very funny. I'm being a lawyer. He signed it and sent it back. Bad mistake. But there was also a letter. Listen, I also wrote a letter in my hand on the yellow pad and saying that I had been waiting for for 50 years. But I didn't know what that meant other than the fact that I had been waiting for her for 50 years. And now I wanted to find out what's going to happen because who knows what's going to happen? You never know. But so it wasn't exactly like I was just, you know,

making a joke on it. I was serious. But it was an unknown area. But the recognition you had from who she was in writing of love and shadows. That was like your magnetic needle. Perhaps the North and said, this is it. But you know something really interesting happened at the beginning of our relationship. Willy is a man that has been very wounded in his life. He lost his father when he was six. And from that moment on, he was alone. He had to take care of himself from age six on. And he had bad relationships, bad marriages, partners that betrayed him, women that didn't work and children that were in mass. So he had been very wounded and very betrayed. And so when we got together, one of the very first things that I said is, look, I'm never going to harm you on purpose. If it happens, it's because I make a mistake. And your back is covered. So all your fights are out there, not with me because I'm in the back,

covering your back. And he believed me. He's part of all the stuff that had happened in his life. He did believe me. And I really meant it. And I think that that changed his attitude with me and he sort of surrendered to take the risk and just see if it would work. But without that surrendering, it would have never worked. How hard was it for you to surrender? It was hard. I mean, you know, it was the little voice saying, oh no, it'll happen. How was 50 years old? And through the mess, she's just talked about the song. But that's happened both to both of us. You go along and you come to a sort of an obstacle that's in the, it's like the door jam and you say, I have to get over this. And then you take a chance, you say, okay, I'll step into this next room and let's see what happens. So you go through the series of passages where you get to the door jam and then you sort of. But you know, in all

love relationships, there has to be history. I think that I was in Harry. I wanted passion, I wanted, I wanted love, I wanted marriage, I wanted everything immediately. And Willie was very cautious. And he always said from the very beginning, just wait, let's see how it happens. We need history. And it is true. You need to look back and say, wow, we've been together all these years and we have overcome all these obstacles somehow. So you gain strength, you know, muscle for the relationship. You have created this tribe of people around you, your extended family. And as I read your memoirs, I see how important family is to you that you have your series of letters to your mother, hundreds and hundreds of letters. The house of the spirits was started as a letter to your grandfather. So how are you chronicling these ongoing, as you create your history?

How are you chronicling? It passed the memoirs. Are you, do you keep journals to you? The letter to my mother every day. So I write to her every day what has happened in the day. And in a way I know that it is not lost. Someday it will be back in the closet. And if I need to write in 10 years what has happened, I will go to those packages of letters and go through the events and remember the feelings of the moment, which is so important because in time we may remember what happened. We don't remember what we felt really. And we change it in our minds also. So the letter, the daily letter is really important for me. When my mother was 88 dies, I don't know what I'm going to do. I need to find another person to write a letter every day too. In the summer of our days you were still writing to Paul, are you done there? So I think you'll be able to

continue that wonderful fluid process and you. Well I don't think I would have been able to write. If I hadn't met Isabelle and learned from her several technical things about writing. And then about family. Because if you ever do read any of my books you'll see that there's a family created by the characters. And I didn't understand that before our relationship. And so I felt very isolated, very alone. And all my searching was by a lonely character and sort of walking in a wasteland. And this idea of family and connection to community and everything made it possible for me to put everything together. Well we thank you. We ran out of time. Thank you. We're bringing your family to us in Santa Fe. Thank you very much. I wanted to just share with some of your books. Alas I didn't have time to find yours. But Isabelle of love and

shadow. They made a movie by their way. So don't read the book. What's the movie? They also made a wonderful movie of the house of the spirits. And her most recent book, The Some of Our Days. And Willie, your books, The Chinese Jar, The King of the Bottom. And the Ugly Port. But they are not in English. Unfortunately they will be. Yeah I hope so. Yes. So I want to thank you our guests today. Our Willie Gordon. Thank you. And his wonderful wife is the Reliant. Thank you. Thank you. And I'm Lorraine Mills. I'd like to thank you our audience for being with us today and report from Santa Fe. We'll see you next week. Report from Santa Fe is made possible in part by Grant Strong, the members of the National Education Association of New Mexico, an organization of professionals who believe that investing in public education is an investment in our state's economic future. And by a grant from the Healy Foundation, Taos, New Mexico.