When Felicia Luna Lemus enters the East Village coffee shop where I will conduct our interview, I suddenly realize why the decision was made to have her author photo take up the whole back cover of her novel Like Son (Akashic, 2007). She is stunning–arguably even lovelier in reality–with clear skin and a warm smile. Her hair is longer now, pulled back in a ponytail, and in reality she is less gritty, hip queer as you might expect from her photo, and more polished, professional writer and professor. When she talks, she is equally poised, placing her words thoughtfully together. Even when discussing her kooky sparkly pen and unicorn collection (her partner T. Cooper, author of Lipshitz Six, or Two Angry Blondes, just gave her a pen that winds into a heart at the top) she remains calm and graceful, never revealing the eccentricity that must lie at the heart of these obsessions. And Felicia is most certainly obsessive – not just with her collections – but about her art.

Like Son–and her first novel Trace Elements of Random Tea Parties (FSG, 2003), which I was surprised to learn)–were both inspired by one woman: Nahui Olin. Felicia admits, embarrassedly, “She’s kind of my muse.” She is embarrassed because she attended Cal Arts where “muses” are decidedly dorky and out of date. When I talk to Felicia more about Nahui, I’m not sure what is more fascinating: this unconventional and underrated artist or Felicia’s relationship to her.

Like Son is the story of a Mexican-American transsexual named Frank Cruz. Frank leaves home at eighteen for LA, but when he learns that his estranged and blind father -- a blindness he learns he may very well inherit -- is dying, he returns to help his father navigate his death. On his deathbed, his father gives Frank a mysterious crumbling photograph of a woman with a stunning gaze. The woman is Nahui Olin: a member of he early twentieth-century avant-garde who may have been in love with Frank's grandmother. Frank takes the portrait and heads for New York's East Village. There, he meets the glamorous and gorgeous Nathalie. Nathalie reminds Frank of Nahui, whose face and history have now obsessed him. Frank and Nathalie begin to date and shortly afterwards, they move in together. After September 11 hits, Nathalie is thrown into a depression and suddenly takes off with no explanation, and Frank must contend with his past and his ideas of himself. The book, as Felicia herself concedes, is very much about history – what we inherit from our families, whether we like it or not.

When I ask Felicia to tell me more about Nahui Olin (I read in another interview that she referred to her as the "anti-Frida") she tells me that her first introduction to Nahui was when she saw a portrait of her in January 1998 in The Orange County Weekly when she was still living in southern California. She was captivated by the portrait – her beautiful, fierce, thoroughly contemporary stare. "At first, I thought she was this riot grrl, in a band coming through town.” It turned out that the photo – Nahui Olin, 1924 – was actually for an article discussing a future Edward Weston photography exhibit in Laguna Beach. Felicia went to the Weston exhibit, and became even more fascinated with Nahui when she saw the actual photo in the exhibit. A former history major, Felicia tried to do some research into Olin but had difficulty finding information about her. She could only find passing references in other people's biographies of Frida Kahlo and Edward Weston. So, she began writing fictional accounts of her – many that would make its way into her first book, Trace Elements of Random Tea Parties. At the same time, Felicia’s discovered two new biographies about Olin and soon realized that Nahui Olin was as equally fascinating as her photograph. A talented poet and painter, Nahui was also a child prodigy - in 1924, her childhood diaries would be published as a book: A Dix Ans Sur Mon Pupire (From My Desk, at 10). But most of all it was clear to Felicia that had Nahui been alive now, her art would have been understood and appreciated, whereas in the 1920s, her significant body of work was mostly written off due to her transgressive behavior. The “real” Nahui made her way into Like Son.

Felicia tells me that before she saw Nahui's photo she was planning on becoming a school teacher and writing was not really a large part of her life (although Felicia received her MFA from the California Institute of the Arts in 2000). But then Nahui led her to New York, where she published her first novel. Shortly after, she would lead the kind of real, true-to-life, writer's life that so many covet, attending Writing Festivals in Jamaica, heading out on book tours, and even a teaching gig at the The New School.

The portrait that inspired the book – and Felicia career – is featured on Like Son's jacket cover. Because I'm an editorial assistant and know how expensive requesting permission to use photos and music lyrics in novels can be, I ask Felicia how difficult it was to obtain permission to use the photo, which obviously, had to be the photo on the cover of this book. She laughs. "We were really worried about that! I knew that the great Sandra Cisneros had used a Weston photo on a cover of her book. But…she is the great Sandra Cisneros. Johnny [my editor] told me to just give it a try and lucky for us, it turned out rights were with a small company in Arizona. They were very supportive and granted us permission to use the photo."

In New York, Felicia also found romance with a writer--T. Cooper. They share an East Village apartment with a bathroom decorated with semi-ironic Christ paraphernalia, and lots of collections (as mentioned, unicorns and sparkly pens being the current fixations). When I ask if it is difficult to live with another writer (especially with a writer who also shares the same editor, Johnny Temple) she tells me it is no problem at all. "We have a railroad apartment," she says. "My desk is at one end of the apartment and T's desk is at another." She tells me that often their schedules are so different that they aren't even writing at the same time.

I ask Felicia if she was living in the East Village at the time of 9/11 – like Frank and Nathalie in the book – and we begin to talk about her conflict about including 9/11 at all in the novel. "Many writers I know," I tell her, "feel a responsibility to talk about it but also feel fearful about talking about it too early." She nods. "This is something I thought a lot about. I even tried to revise the book, at one point, so that it did not include 9/11. But then, because the book was set at such a specific time period and place, it would seem unnatural to omit it. And Nathalie and Frank sleep through it," she points out. "They don't even realize it happened until after the fact."

In another interview, I read that she felt that growing up Mexican but looking white offered her an interesting perspective on life. She had said (in a Bookslut interview): "people reveal a side of themselves that they wouldn't necessarily reveal all their lives, like they wouldn't have said certain things in a polite conversation had they known I was Mexican." I ask her if this helps her with her writing and with getting inside characters who are radically different from herself. She pauses for a moment. "I think all writers have different points of entry into their writing and yes, I do think that this is definitely my way."

At that point, my new fancy iPod recording device dies. (Felicia kindly points out that it seems to happen just as The Cure begins blasting in the coffee shop). And with our conversation waning, our coffee mugs dry, I sign off. We shake hands goodbye, and I step out into the hot, humid, summer evening, trying to piece together Felicia Luna Lemus’ many obsessions.

Jennifer Bassett works in book publishing, is a Senior Editor for Swink magazine, Contributing Editor for KGB Bar Lit, and really likes playing her Farfisa VIP 345 Organ.

Felicia Luna Lemus is the author of two novels, Like Son (Akashic Books, 2007) and Trace Elements of Random Tea Parties (FSG, 2003). She teaches writing at The New School and lives in the East Village of Manhattan. For more information visit her website: felicialunalemus.com.

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