communicate in certain ways with them, i stopped speaking it easily without any psychological uptightne uptightness these are notions i put it to my first novel. than six years later, i published "the mambo kings play songs of love" which was an explosive celebration of my cuban routes and music and involved so many fantasies and realities that i grew up with, people would look at me, blonde, fair skin, very new york in his demeanor and ask how on earth does that happen and i would have to explain and lot of people have thought that "the mambo kings play songs of love" was my first novel so i found myself explaining myself again and again, explaining just what i was about with each new book. people are curious. how do you write this book about your upbringing and other related issues to latinos? so in a way "thoughts without cigarettes" is a response to all these people who have asked me these questions over the years. how did you come about as a human being and get these crazy ideas for these books? the short answer is the irs. >> which you had a run in with. >> not really. yes i did, as a matter