Rodrigo García, A FAREWELL TO GABO AND MERCEDES: A Son's Memoir of Gabriel García Márquez and Mercedes Barcha
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[0:41]If you like this podcast, you will love my new anthology called Moms Don't Have Time to Have Kids.
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[0:51]Hi, my name is Amy Agresti, and I'm thrilled to have contributed to Moms Don't Have Time to Have Kids.
[0:56]My essay is called Can a Writer Be Too Emotional, asking for a friend.
[1:00]And what I really don't have time for is writing, sure, but also figuring out how to use my phone properly.
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[1:10]Anyway, read this anthology. It's amazing.
[1:13]Rodrigo Garcia is the author of a farewell to Gabo and Mercedes,
[1:17]a son's memoir of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Mercedes Barca.
[1:21]Rodrigo Garcia was born in Colombia, grew up in Mexico City,
[1:25]and studied history at Harvard University.
[1:27]His features as writer and director include Nine Lives, Albert Knobs, and Last Days in the Desert.
[1:33]Garcia has directed for television series such as Six Feet Under the Sopranos and the Pilot of Big Love
[1:39]for which he received an Emmy nomination.
[1:41]He also directed several episodes for HBO's Intreatment, which by the way,
[1:45]I was obsessed with and watched every episode,
[1:47]wherein in addition to directing, he served as writer, executive producer, and series showrunner.
[1:53]So I probably should have talked to him about how much I love the show,
[1:55]but I didn't know well. Garcia currently resides in Los Angeles with his family.
[1:59]Welcome, Rodrigo. Thank you so much for coming on Mom's Don't Have Time to Read Bex
[2:03]to discuss a farewell to Gabo and Mercedes, a son's memoir.
[2:07]Thank you very much, pleasure to be here.
[2:09]I have to say I listened to this book. I didn't read it.
[2:12]I listened to the whole thing in my car on a long drive,
[2:15]which was great because you could actually read the whole book in one long drive.
[2:19]So I felt enormously accomplished.
[2:21]And at the end, I was like crying as I was driving.
[2:24]I mean, it is so beautiful. I love how you did it.
[2:27]I just loved this book so much. So anyway, bravo to you.
[2:30]Thank you very much.
[2:32]And tell listeners, when did you decide?
[2:36]And I know some of what you talked about in the book is your decision to even write this book.
[2:41]And you were sort of conflicted about it.
[2:43]And if you should record it and if you should publish it and talk to me about this
[2:47]becoming a book as you dealt with, you know, your father's illness and eventual loss.
[2:52]And I'm so sorry.
[2:54]Thank you.
[2:54]You know, when and when I described in the book as an initial period of back and forth
[2:59]where he's not doing well and they tell us he's got maybe months to live.
[3:02]And then suddenly that changed into, you know, most likely three weeks, you know,
[3:07]with these best estimates that doctors can give you.
[3:11]So, you know, we all spent a lot of time at home.
[3:13]And as I described in the book, you know,
[3:15]we were getting calls from people everywhere.
[3:17]They had friends from around the world and journalists and people began to gather at the door of the house
[3:23]and then police showed up at the door of the house because so many people had gathered.
[3:27]And, you know, when you're essentially waiting for a person to pass,
[3:31]it's a very rarefied headspace, you know, there's really nothing to do and it's too soon to be terribly sad.
[3:40]It's, you know, the days are like this jello, very strange.
[3:46]And it was all very rich.
[3:47]So it was inevitable, you know, to think, wow, I should take some notes here to remember this.
[3:52]And initially the idea was simply I had no idea.
[3:55]I said, I would take notes and maybe write up something that would be for my brother and myself and for our children
[4:00]and just to remember.
[4:01]And, you know, I took those notes like I described in the book with a certain amount of guilt and discomfort feeling
[4:07]that I was, you know, essentially betraying the privacy of the family and my father's last days, et cetera.
[4:12]But since there were private, I, you know, forgave myself.
[4:15]And then when my father died, I sat down and wrote down very quickly.
[4:20]I wanted to put it all down while it was fresh and to write it quickly so that I wouldn't be, you know, bogged down with guilt and security, the whole, you know, the whole thing.
[4:30]And even when I finished that part of it or what I thought was everything that I was going to write,
[4:35]I said, well, what can I do with this?
[4:37]You know, my mother who was still alive, she was not, you know, she wouldn't have looked well upon us publishing anything and, you know, breaking that line between the public and the private.
[4:46]And it was also too short to be a book, too long could be an article, so I put it aside for essentially for six or seven years.
[4:53]And then when my mother died in 2020, I realized what it was I wanted to write about, which was a farewell to both of them.
[5:01]And, you know, this discovery when the second parent dies that you, you should expect because it's logical, but the feeling of it is quite, you know, concrete that when the second parent dies, this whole world dies, this religion that you grew up in, the set of beliefs that you agree or disagree, you know, you grew up in a church, basically.
[5:24]So that's what I wanted to write anyway, this is a long way to say, this is a long way to say I never planned a book, you know, it just, it became a book once I realized, oh, this should be the goodbye to both my parents and not just the writing of some, you know, the farewell to the legendary writer or the big artist.
[5:42]It's okay that it's that's the whole point is to hear you talk about your life and your book. I love it. No, it's great. You know, some of the moments that you describe some of the in between while you're waiting and what you just referred to now we're so poignant, even, you know, just having the hospice person there and like telling you and when you're waiting outside and yes, you should come and know you should come and just these, these moments in time.
[6:05]Now that you've sort of lived through this and then you had to go through with your mom too and have to say goodbye with like your cracked iPhone, which is the most sad and very very twenty twenty.
[6:18]Exactly. Yes, I said goodbye to many people on zoom. It was like horrendous. So I related awful. Like what do you what do you sort of take away from like the ways we process loss, right? You were so in it with your dad. You were there every minute. You were back and forth. You were flying. You were dealing with press and then you have to contrast that with just a screen.
[6:40]Right. Like where is the right not right or wrong, but where is the balance? How do you? Is there a right way to grieve? Is there an optimal situation and like how do we get our way through all these situations sort of a random question, but you know, I think it's different for everyone and different for every case.
[6:57]You know, with my father, he suffered from dementia. So he lost his memory over, you know, eight years, but the last three, four years, he was more and more out of it certainly the last two years.
[7:08]So that, you know, we could refer to us as the long goodbye. So it was sad, of course, when he died, but, but there was, you know, he had been leaving us for a long time. My mom, you know, it was very quick. She sort of took a turn and 48 hours. She was gone, but she was very much diminished by, you know, her age, her weight and you know, 65 years of smoking, but also, you know, luckily for her that also went quickly.
[7:37]I'm sort of stalling to answer your question because, you know, I didn't really, it really didn't dawn on me that my dad had died till the anniversary, for example.
[7:48]You know, even though we went through all that and all the sadness and all the mixed feelings and all the public stuff and even by then I'd written a book that, you know, that was basically in a drawer.
[7:59]But it wasn't until the anniversary when I thought, oh, wow, that happened. Incredible. And with my mom, it's been more, you know, I think about it every day. It's been a year.
[8:09]And you know, you have these thoughts that are thoughts and feelings that are a little, you know, I feel that they're in some ways more present than ever. I feel that they become giants after their death.
[8:22]This is not to idealize them because bad parents, as you know, can also be huge giants, you know, and dead parents and parents you never met parents who left you.
[8:34]And biological parents that you may not have met, you know, these, they can be huge, you know, huge presences in your life.
[8:41]I think because my mom was very present, very conscious, you know, throughout her last years, her brain was intact, you know, she is a little more a little closer to her right now.
[8:51]But I don't really have an answer for you. I think it's surprises you. You know, I've been doing well. And then the last three or four days for reasons that I can't imagine. I was thinking about her all the time.
[9:03]So I don't know. I don't, you know, I think for every person, it's different. Some people, you know, cry their heart out and move on.
[9:09]Others cry their heart out two years later.
[9:12]Others, you know, never have the feelings and then they go out and beat up some people in a bar.
[9:19]Because, you know, at the heart of it is a notion that is totally normal and that we mostly accept, but that is absurd, which is that life ends.
[9:30]And a person that is is no longer. I mean, this is so evident. I'm sounding like an idiot, but when it has happened to you, you're like, wow, I mean, I remember, you know, when I walked into the room and my dad had just died.
[9:47]I thought, wow, that was so easy.
[9:49]And I'm not saying it was easy for him, easy for us, but it really is, you know, like turning off a light like crossing the door, like going through a veil and yet it's everything.
[9:59]So, you know.
[10:00]It's, the part of you just can't wrap your mind around it, you know.
[10:07]There must be a reason. Maybe that's the way it was programmed, you know. Well, you know,
[10:13]I don't. And we must live in denial of it. Otherwise, how do you get out of bed in the morning?
[10:19]True. Well, in addition to, you know, you're really interesting and thoughtful, you know, writing
[10:25]about loss and grief, there's a lot also about being in a public family and being and where
[10:32]how much to keep private, how much to expose and sort of growing up in that way. And I'm curious
[10:39]about your own career and, you know, this book aside even with like your whole film career and
[10:44]everything, like how you get out from sort of the shadow of somebody who's super successful
[10:49]and growing up with that and making your own sort of way in the world. Tell me a little about
[10:54]about that aspect if you don't mind. Well, I think there were two facets to it. You know, when we
[11:00]were kids, my dad was not known until he wrote a hundred years of solitude, which came out when I was
[11:05]eight. And that was a phenomenon of a book. But, you know, we lived in Mexico in some years in Barcelona
[11:12]with what was essential of very middle class life. I mean, yes, everyone we knew were, you know,
[11:17]artists or people who worked in advertising because they were artists making a living. You know,
[11:22]we didn't my brother and I didn't know a single business person growing up, not one, not one,
[11:26]nobody in business. And, you know, so that even when we lived in Spain and his reputation through
[11:32]the book and throughout the world as the book got translated grew, you know, we were still fairly
[11:37]protected. It was after all, you know, the late 60s and 70s. And he was a writer, you know,
[11:42]he wasn't the rock star. He wasn't the soccer star. And this was, of course, way before
[11:49]the internet. You know, I think I think people have forgotten what fame was like back then,
[11:54]you know, we knew very little of how people live. We often didn't even know where they lived.
[11:59]So that was okay. I mean, obviously, as you get older, 17, 18, 19, and you start to think about
[12:05]the future, then, you know, you have as a reference someone who's very successful. And I think for
[12:10]children of very successful people, the risky thing is the part of you, unconscious, even if, you know,
[12:17]conscious that you know that there are no guarantees that you will have as much success.
[12:22]There's a part of you unconsciously, just because of the way you grow up that says to you,
[12:29]this is going to happen to me too. And it's a little voice that you ignore. And then as the
[12:34]years go by, it doesn't quite happen because, you know, it's very hard for lightning to strike
[12:40]like that. And I've been lucky with a good career. I mean, there's been people who have had
[12:44]extremely frustrating, you know, careers after their parents had, you know, enormous careers.
[12:50]But after he won the Nobel Prize in 1982, then I think his fame, you know, definitely multiplied,
[13:00]and he was more recognized everywhere. And then, but by then, you know, I was out in the world,
[13:07]I was out of college. I was finding my way. I mean, it would be crazy to say that, you know, his
[13:13]fame and talent didn't, you know, didn't hover over me. It did. But I always had this feeling that,
[13:20]you know, everyone and artists included, everyone has baggage that they need to deal with.
[13:28]You know, my baggage was very acceptable. Yes, there is the ghost of the great artists,
[13:33]but I also had a good father. There are people who have a terrible father who may be a great
[13:39]artist or not even that. So for me, all in all in the balance, you know, my father was very
[13:45]family-oriented. He always worked in the house as I described in the book. He worked every morning
[13:49]from 92. And, you know, so we had lunch together every day. It wasn't, you know, it wasn't,
[13:54]it was some jet-setting lifestyle. I remember once there was a girl who was in high school with us
[14:00]with my brother and I, and she came to the lunch at the house one day. And when she got home,
[14:06]her mother said to her, oh, you met the author. What was he like? She said, she thought about it
[14:11]for a moment. And she said, oh, well, he was this man needing soup because we were seated in the
[14:18]kitchen, having lunch, eating soup. I mean, you know, it's not, it's not all, you know, diamonds.
[14:25]So to make a long story short, it's always been a mixture. Yes, the success was the stature
[14:30]that, you know, like I say in the book, the biggest difficulty is that it creates many different
[14:37]gabos. Some are my dad when I was little, my dad when I was a teenager, my dad when I was a grown up,
[14:42]some was the dad at home, some was the very famous dad, some was the super famous dad.
[14:47]You know, when people say things to you like, oh, I remember now yesterday someone said to me,
[14:52]I remembered yesterday that someone was said to me, how does it feel that your dad is one of the
[14:56]great authors of the 20th century? I was like, make that a double vodka place.
[15:04]You know, it's crazy. It's, I mean, it's someone sent me a tweet yesterday, just to give you an
[15:09]idea of the things that sometimes sort of, you know, remind you of the stature of things. Someone
[15:16]sent me a tweet yesterday for me a pharaoh tweeted. And she said, what is the best novel you've read,
[15:25]not including a hundred years of solitude? So it's like, okay, I mean, it's like, wow, you know,
[15:32]so anyway. Wow. And you described in the book the trance-like state that your dad would get into
[15:37]while writing. Tell me a little more about that. You said like you would talk to him and say,
[15:41]you're not even like hearing me and he would just kind of look through you.
[15:45]Yeah, I mean, it is, and I say that in the book, he's, you know, his concentration,
[15:50]you know, I suffer a little bit from attention deficit. So for me to watch that now, you know,
[15:56]he would really go there and become totally entranced. You know, you would walk into his office,
[16:02]especially when I was a kid when he was still smoking, he quit soon after. You know, he'd have,
[16:07]this is gusting ashtray full of cigarette bugs and cigarette going and another one going in the
[16:14]other hand, writing at super speed with basically two or three fingers because he never had it.
[16:19]I mean, that the sound of the typewriter is one of the musics of my childhood.
[16:23]But yeah, you go in there and say, you know, mom wants to know if we're going to go to this thing
[16:28]tonight or not. I mean, he'd look at you. But you think and he's still, and then you'd leave.
[16:35]And he stayed there and finally he'd turn around and keep writing. So I mean, I did grow up thinking
[16:40]that with that level of concentration, one could achieve anything. I mean, it was just so focused
[16:45]and then to cut and then to cut it in and then to shut it off at 2 p.m. and you know,
[16:50]to try to rest his brain, he would force himself to do that. Part of ADHD though is this hyper
[16:56]focus and well aware, you know, you get so into something and you like everything else just fades
[17:02]away. Yeah, no, I have I have the other flavor, which is after 10 minutes, I have to change the
[17:08]channel of my life. You know, I mean, it's like I can't sit for more than 10 minutes. I mean,
[17:14]I do when I have to. Yeah, I know it's it was remarkable to watch. My brother has it,
[17:18]he and Harriet get some of it. He can he's an artist and he can sit down and draw for five hours
[17:23]and never look up. Well, did it help you to get this book out into the world? Like do you feel
[17:28]like you've made some sort of piece with the events that have happened or do you feel more connected
[17:32]to your parents or like do you just do you feel like it's helped you? Yeah, all of the above. I mean,
[17:38]just by, you know, having to write stuff that just having to put down not just the events,
[17:43]but your feelings about it and the very fact of going public with it. And then it, you know,
[17:49]the perspective, like I said, I sat with most of it for years until my mother died. So then having
[17:54]to go back to sort of revise that and, you know, incorporate it to what I wrote about my mother,
[17:59]you know, made me live through it again. Yeah, I mean, the stuff that the field is some of the stuff
[18:04]we started off, you know, by talking about, I feel that, you know, the dead or not dead,
[18:10]even, I mean, I'm not a religious person, but that's what I feel that the dead are not dead
[18:15]and that they become these big figures. And you do understand them more. Doesn't mean your frustrations,
[18:22]your anglers with whatever issues are not there, but you do understand them more as people,
[18:26]you forgive them more. You wish you would have known them better. And also, you know, I have to say
[18:32]that as sad as my parents, deaths were for me and for my brother, for all of us,
[18:37]for their grandchildren, they were very sad. That was very pleasing to see. And it sounds like
[18:42]a contradiction, but, you know, it was lovely to see how much it meant to my brother's children
[18:48]in mind. But, you know, they did die. They were both 87 when they died. And that there's a
[18:52]difference between seeing a life cycle lived is sad, but it's not tragic. You know, it's not people
[18:59]dying young and accidents or by, you know, with brutal diseases. You know, they did live extraordinary
[19:05]lives and they had as many years as anyone can hope for. So, one of the hardest things,
[19:11]I mentioned this because you said you heard the book and the car. One of the hardest things
[19:15]were recording the audio books, which I didn't Spanish in English because, you know, reading,
[19:20]rereading. And then when it went out to publishers, there was a little bit of editing and back
[19:24]and forth and correct and proofs. And so there was a point where I was so done with the book. I
[19:30]just couldn't face it anymore. And then they said, Oh, you're going to do the audio books. And I
[19:34]said, Oh, yeah, I love audio books because I do. But then when you're in there, you've got to live
[19:40]it again. And there's a director in your ear that says, have you done audio books? I have, actually.
[19:47]Yes. I mean, it's much more work than people think. And they won't let they won't let you
[19:51]have to hug. You know, sometimes I would just sort of like read through something that I didn't
[19:55]want to be reading. And then he or she would say, well, I think that part was a little
[20:00]more intimate. Let's go back and take more time with it. So it was like, oh, God, the audiobook,
[20:05]that was tough to have to go back and live it again. Yeah, I've been struck by so many authors
[20:13]find that to be super emotional, we're having to live through it by recounting it, right? Because
[20:19]we've already relived it by writing it. And now you have to say it. And it's like this whole
[20:23]other immersion. And I think even if you're reading a fiction book, you know, or all authors
[20:30]are in their fiction. So you have the sense of of nakedness, if you really read it like
[20:37]it should be read like you feel it. Well, what is like coming next for you in life? Like,
[20:44]what is your next professional thing? And like, what do you up to? I am in Richmond, Virginia
[20:51]today. I'm a prepping a movie that I wrote called Raymond and Ray, about two brothers,
[20:56]two half brothers, who have a father that they hated and the father has died. And now they have
[21:01]to deal with the remnants of that. So I'm in pre production for that. Exciting. My husband is
[21:07]actually in pre production for another movie in in LA. And I'm like, this is like the most endless
[21:13]process. You know, anyway, so I feel like I'm getting every day his schedule. And now I'm finally
[21:17]seeing what it what that really means. Yeah, a movie he's producing or directing. He's producing
[21:23]and he's producing. So it's a lot of work. And then of course in the middle of the COVID protocols
[21:29]and the COVID this. But as I always like to remind myself, when you're a film director, it's
[21:35]grotesque to complain. It's a super privileged profession. So no complaint. Awesome. Just one final
[21:42]question. What advice would you have for aspiring authors? Well, you know, I am really not an author
[21:47]in the sense. You are though. No, but not, you know what I mean, I've written screen place and
[21:52]pilots for TV. You know, first of all, do it. Sit your ass down and do it. And then, you know,
[22:00]reach the last page of your draft. This is something I say to screenwriters also. The objective
[22:05]of your first draft is to reach the last page. The things that are learned about writing
[22:12]and about your book or screenplay by reaching the last page can only be learned by reaching the
[22:19]last page. You know, so many people start writing something and then when things get tough in the
[22:24]middle of it, they say, Oh, I have a better idea for something else. So I would say, you know, get to
[22:29]the end. Then you can look at all of it. And good, better ugly. It's going to teach you a lot about
[22:35]your rewrite. Good advice. Very good. Amazing. Well, thank you so much. Absolutely. That's what
[22:41]happened. Really, really loved it. And thank you for coming on. Well done. Thank you. Okay. Have a great day.
[22:50]Thanks for listening to this episode of moms. Don't have time to read books. Don't forget to
[22:54]follow me on Instagram at zebioans and at moms. Don't have time to read books. Also sign up for
[23:00]my newsletter at zebioans.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on
[23:04]Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan. In fact, texture sound for the sound
[23:09]editing. And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and
[23:13]now trim music.