So I read Caramelo. Caramelo is Cisneros' latest novel, about a girl named Lala whose family moves from Chicago to Mexico and back to San Antonio. My friends-in-the-know were unwhelmed by it; when I asked for opinions, they wrinkled their noses and sighed. "Well, it's o-kaaay." In the review that ran in my paper, my friend Melanie calls the book a "forced and plodding novel that is hard to trust." So my expectations were low, but I'll be honest -- I liked it fine. In one scene, Lala and her friend Viva spend afternoons trying on prom dresses they can't afford and scouring the bargain bins at Woolworth's, which is exactly how my best friend Jennifer and I used to whittle away Saturdays at 13. All movie-fed fantasies and heartbreaking insecurity. Blue eyeshadow and fuschia gowns.

But I'm still stumped about what to ask her. I imagine a seasoned journalist knows how to extract a quote like a seasoned nurse gives a shot, quick and painless. I imagine a seasoned journalist knows how to steer an interview, knows his angle and the way the interview will factor into the big picture.
I am not a seasoned journalist. That's good and bad; where I work saying you're "not a journalist" is like a candidate telling you he's "not a politician." In theory it speaks to my uncorrupted mind, my authentic writing voice, my personal approach to learning a story. In practice, it means I panic before every interview. Sometimes, for inspiration, I read other interviews. Cisneros has talked with charming self-deprecation about the nine years it took to complete the novel. "It was like pushing a car across the country with my forehead," she told one interviewer. In the book's acknowledgement section she calls writing it "like making a walking pilgrimage from Tepeyac to Chicago. On my knees." But I didn't want to needle her with the same nagging question: "What took so long, huh?" That's when I remembered what Cisneros and I have in common: one lone star state. The night before our interview took place, the Texas Democrats had been pummeled at the polls, including Latino gubernatorial candidate Tony Sanchez, who had poured some $60 million into his unfocused campaign, what the politics editor at my paper called his "staggering personal gamble." Nobody I knew cared for Sanchez, but I remembered hearing that San Antonio supported him big. And Cisneros - perhaps the city's most famous Chicana - must have opinions about it.

I tell you all this cringing, with great gulps of pride. Never mind that my assumption is maybe racist and certainly foolish. Never mind that talking politics is probably the worst, most contentious way to begin an interview short of asking about someone's sex life. I was excited to have an "in." I was excited to charm her by talking about things she cared about, the way she charmed me by writing about Woolworth afternoons and grown-up gowns. "Are you depressed about the election? Well, I'm depressed too."

That didn't happen. I continue my slow walk through personal embarrassment tomorrow.