Rodrigo Garcia’s Memoir “A Farewell to Gabo and Mercedes”

BIANNA GOLODRYGA: And your parents, your famous, he died in 2014. I was struck though that it was actually the death of your mother last year that ultimately led you to write this memoir. What was it about losing both parents that changed the calculus for you?

RODRIGO GARCIA, AUTHOR, “A FAREWELL TO GABO AND MERCEDES”: Well, initially, you know, I took notes in those last three weeks of my dad’s life when we knew his time was running out. And I didn’t quite know what to do with them. I thought I would write them for myself or a memoir for my brother, our kids, etc. But I sat down and wrote it quickly after he died. And I had something there that I didn’t know what I was going to do with. I felt a little, you know, uneasy about publishing something in a rush about the death of not just my dad but a famous man. So, I put it aside. And it was only last August when my mother died that I realized what my theme was, as it were. Which was, you know, saying goodbye to both your parents. You know, the death of your second parent is like I say in the book, it’s is like the end of a planet, the death of a religion. So, I wanted to make it about both of them. Obviously, she was not as famous as he was. But it really is a book about saying goodbye to your parents and to that world.

GOLODRYGA: You write, the death of a second parent is like looking through a telescope one night and no looking finding a planet that has always been there. I was watching an interview you gave earlier and you said it was like closing a door to the church that you and your family had been to throughout your life. This is a subject that any child, anybody that has parents can be touched by and become emotional in reading and discussing. And yet, you do it in — obviously, it is sentimental, but you do it in a beautiful way as well. Were you cognizant about not writing something too morose or too depressing?

GARCIA: You know, any time — I mean, most of my writing has been for film or TV. But, you know, writing is writing. And what you are always trying to find is the right tone. You know, I didn’t want it to be so aloof that it seemed like I didn’t care. I didn’t want it to be, you know, all about my own feelings. You know, you try to make the particular universal. You try to see things as others would see them. You know, I think when you are writing, you kind of assume you are everyone and everyone is you. So, you have to find that balance where, you know, the private might be interesting to others.