Driving Mrs. Cory
/Forgiving Imelda Marcos by Nathan Go
New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023
Nathan was born and raised in the Philippines and currently resides in Mindanao, returning there after having attended university in the U.S. and earning two MFAs from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and the Helen Zell Writers’ Program. He was also the 2017-18 David T.K. Wong Fellow at the University of East Anglia.
Nathan Go is an alumnus of the 2011 and 2019 NVM & Narita Gonzalez Writers’ Workshop, founded and directed by Dr. Michael Gonzalez, son of the late novelist, short story writer, essayist, professor, and National Artist of the Philippines, N.V.M. Gonzalez. Nathan and I first met at the 2011 Workshop. I reunited with him in San Francisco to talk about his new book.
June Book Launch at SF Filipino Cultural Center (Sentro Filipino) sponsored by NVM-Narita Gonzalez, Inc. and PAWA. L-R: Christina Newhard, Junice Uy, Lisa Suguitan Melnick, Nathan Go, Michael Gonzalez, Patricia Gonzalez, Edwin Lozada (Photo by Doris Garcia)
The NVM & Narita Gonzalez Writers’ Workshop program of the non-profit organization, NVM-Narita Gonzalez, Inc., has offered writing workshops on the U.S. West Coast and in the Philippines since 2005, to encourage people “to discover writing as an expression of self and of others.”
“NVM believed that literature is the mirror of a people’s collective soul to be cultivated with care, and with creativity. We hope our workshops fulfill this mission,” adds Dr. Michael Gonzalez.
Nathan shared that during the NVM workshops he was working on short stories, but the ideas for Forgiving Imelda Marcos had begun much earlier, around 2007.
“It was not a book but a screenplay, since my undergraduate work was in Screenwriting. I was a new immigrant to the U.S., having lived here only six years. In that draft, the story was told through three perspectives: Lito, the driver; Cory Aquino; and then her daughter, Kris Aquino-- whom I would describe as a mashup of Oprah Winfrey and, let’s say, somebody crazy like Paris Hilton, somebody who really has a media presence. I sort of gravitated toward the driver, Lito, instead. You can have different political figures, but the interesting question to me was, what happens to the regular people? Some of the questions that I wanted to explore were about them.”
On his creative trajectory, Nathan went through a period where he resisted writing about the Philippines. “My brother, sister, and I immigrated to the U.S. in 2001. Because of that, I kind of resisted writing about the Philippines or anything to do with the Philippines; it is a very normal reaction for new immigrants to not want to be pigeonholed. So, I wasn’t writing anything about the Philippines until I got to my third year in college. There was a class that we had to take called ‘Alternative Narrative.’ The idea was that it was the chance for you to write something you don’t usually write about.”
The challenge presented in the course caused him to reframe his view, and he began examining news about the Philippines to try to get an idea. He stumbled upon the news that Corazon Aquino had cancer.
“I wondered what she might be going through. Would she still be thinking back on the People Power Revolution of 1986? Would she be thinking about Imelda Marcos? What if she wanted to gain some closure?”
He has no personal connections to either Corazon Aquino or Imelda Marcos, but when he was growing up in the Philippines, he had many memories of always seeing the two women in the news.
“I was always fascinated by those two ladies. There were not a lot of women in power back then. I remember seeing on television, after Imelda Marcos had been acquitted in New York for some corruption charges of some sort, she was so happy that she went to a church where she (walked on her knees) from the entrance to the church all the way to the altar. From then, I was always very fascinated with these two polar opposite women.”
Nathan shared that developing these two women as characters from the way they were living through their situations was the fun part of the novel, but the whole concept of their meeting, is completely fabricated.
Forgiving Imelda Marcos, the provocative title of the book made me wonder if Nathan’s story was actually proposing forgiveness. On the one hand, supporters of Imelda Marcos might ask “What does she need to be forgiven for?” while others might think, “She hasn’t expressed repentance, so why should she be forgiven?”
Nathan Go and Lisa Melnick (Photo by Doris Garcia)
“Are you concerned about the way the book will be received?” I asked.
“I didn’t set out to write a political novel. It just happens that the figures of the characters are political. But I’m not supposed to be the story. The characters are my story.”
Despite the title, Forgiving Imelda Marcos has little to do with Imelda Marcos at all. What does it have to do with forgiveness? Lito Macaraeg, the narrator, is Corazon Aquino’s personal driver and her only companion on a journey from Manila to Baguio to meet Imelda Marcos. Years later, after suffering a serious heart injury, and confined to a Manila nursing home, Lito has reached out to his estranged son—a journalist who lives in the United States—to promise him a scoop: the story of a secret meeting between Imelda and Corazon. But as Lito tells his son the story of these two women, his own story and failings slowly come to light.
Readers will be treated to an intimate encounter with Nathan Go’s characters. The driver Lito Macrarag, reflecting on his weakened state, explores issues of redemption, dignity, and yes, forgiveness – but not in ways a reader might expect. Forgiving Imelda Marcos illuminates facets of human relationships with astute sensitivity.
Lisa Suguitan Melnick, third generation Filipino-American of Ilokano and Cebuano roots, is the composition/literature instructor and a co-advisor for the Katipunan Learning Community at the College of San Mateo, a program which centers its curriculum on Filipinx cultural values and literature. Lisa is an active participant in the NVM & Narita Gonzalez Writing Workshops, including having attended the Centennial Workshop at University of the Philippines, Diliman in 2016. She is also a correspondent for PositivelyFilipino.com and author of #30 Collantes Street (Carayan Press, 2015). Lisa's work is also published in Beyond Lumpia, Pansit, and Seven Manangs Wild,edited by Evangeline Buell et al (Eastwind wBooks, 2014) and The New Filipino Kitchen, edited by Jacqueline Chio-Lauri (Agate Surrey Press, 2018).
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