A Changing Mission District and Intergenerational Friendship Center Tomas Moniz’s Novel ‘The King of Aloe Vera’

SPEAKER_1 (0:03)

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Alexis Madrigal (0:42)

Welcome to Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal. We are out of pledge drive, everyone. Thanks for sticking with us.

This morning, we are talking with Tomas Moniz. Tomas Moniz's The King of Aloe Vera has got to be the novel set closest to KQED headquarters here in San Francisco. On my walk into the office today from BART, I passed half of the book's key locations, from the park on 17th to Shotwell to ODC, the dance studio. This book could not be more locally rooted here in the mission, a place that's a symbol of different things to different people. Latino life, tech world change, the problems of the street, the flood of wealth.

Tomas Jones is here this morning in Spitting Distance to the action of the novel. Welcome, Tomas.

Tomas Moniz (1:29)

Thank you so much for having me here. I appreciate it.

Alexis Madrigal (1:32)

So this book really all works through Rey, our 75-year-old main character, a lover of ODC and the mission branch of the San Francisco Public Library. Just introduce us to Rey. Who is he?

Tomas Moniz (1:45)

Yeah, Rey is a... He's an elder, and I really was trying to, like, think about what it means to, you know, survive and get to that age.

I know so many of us are raising children and haven't thinking about, like, how we want to make the world better. So what does it mean to, like, get to the end, you know? And so with Rey, I just wanted a little bit of some curmudgeonly, playful, irreverent kind of views of the world. And he's been in the mission for a long time, so he's kind of seen it change. And he's struggling with his own place in it and, you know, his kind of future. So that's Rey.

Alexis Madrigal (2:18)

What makes it difficult for Rey in the mission? What are the factors at play for him?

Tomas Moniz (2:23)

Right. Well, I think part of it is a lack of community for the biggest part of it. I think his larger plan to move out of the mission and into this retirement community, which I had so much fun naming, which is like the San Leandro, Rolling Hills Retirement Estates and Community, right? Like I wanted this huge name. And so he's in the space of like, I've got this plan in motion, but I don't quite know if I still believe in it. And, you know, a lot of times I think our elders tend to be, I don't know, left out of a lot of our thinking and planning. And so he's trying to find ways in, but his only real community connection is sweeping his stairs, volunteering at the library and ODC, which I love.

Alexis Madrigal (3:05)

Yeah. I mean, it's interesting, right? Cause part of it is that he's had this personal loss. He lost his beloved wife, who still thinks about a lot in the book.

But part of it is that the world around him, yeah, it really has not just changed, but it feels to him like he doesn't always fit into it.

Tomas Moniz (3:25)

Right. Yeah. I mean, I remember thinking about writing scenes with him, like walking those streets and like, you know, the way we live in such a vibrant, amazing community with all the messiness and beauty that comes with that, right? And so I wanted Rey's trying to continue to see all of that. So what does it mean to walk past the unhoused who are living in those areas, right? And what does it mean to kind of see the kids grow up and see, you know, of course, all the spandex and the rented scooters and the bikes, right? And so how does this make sense to him anymore?

Alexis Madrigal (3:59)

Yeah.

I was curious, where did Rey come from? Did you like sort of meet an elder on the stoop and shot well? Or was it just sort of like a composite of some different mission characters you'd run across?

Tomas Moniz (4:13)

Yeah, it was a little bit of all of that. I mean, I really was trying to imagine because I think, I think I lost a few elders in my life and I started realizing like, God, I'm going to hopefully get to that stage, right? And what is it I'm going to leave behind? Because I was also kind of going through the legacy that they left me. And so I really started thinking like, okay, I tend to write all these characters in their 30s and 40s, like single dads trying to raise kids, trying to find relationships, trying to find community. And so what does it mean to be on the back end of that? And so that's where Rey came from. And I really wanted him to, I wanted also something playful and beyond the kind of stereotypes of what I think sometimes elders get represented as, but I also wanted that loneliness and that kind of disconnect. And so I think when I got the framework for the last month of his existence in the Mission Street apartment, I was like, there you go, I got 30 days, there's one day, one chapter a day and it's like, let's have some fun and see how he's either trying to wrap things up or he's trying to kind of extend himself out.