Nick Fitzsimmons: Privilege and Control in Anita de Monte Laughs Last

Overview

Nick Fitzsimmons is a white, privileged sculptor at the Rhode Island School of Design who becomes Raquel Toro’s boyfriend in Xóchitl González’s Anita de Monte Laughs Last. He embodies the art-world elitism and class condescension that Raquel must overcome to claim her own identity. Although charming and confident, Nick reveals a controlling, insecure nature that parallels the larger power dynamics in the novel, connecting to themes of erasure of women artists, class and privilege, and power and control.

Plot Role

Nick enters the story at his own senior art show (Chapter 3), where Raquel, still an outsider at Brown, approaches him with a candid question. He admires her honesty, saying she “had the balls to say it” and that hearing the criticism was easier than worrying about who was thinking it. Their relationship develops through the first half of the novel, with Nick serving as both a gateway to the elite social circles Raquel longs to join and a mirror of the class anxieties she represses. He later becomes a primary obstacle to her self-realization, as his control over her time and body forces her to confront her own submission.

Motivations and Traits Shown Through Actions

Nick’s actions consistently reveal a need for attention and validation, paired with a belief in his own superiority. He deals marijuana at parties as an easy way to earn money, boasting that it’s “like minting money,” and dismisses his sister Astrid’s drug use as a grab for attention, contrasting it with his own natural talent. When Raquel talks to another man at a party (Julian), Nick snaps at her and leaves abruptly, carrying Astrid like a “pietà”—a performance of caretaking that also asserts control. He uses emotional manipulation: turning her reasonable refusal to skip a commitment into a personal rejection (“Why won’t you let me give you this experience?”). He also cuts Raquel’s hair without her consent in Chapter 27, an act of physical dominance that finally breaks the relationship.

Chronological Arc

Chapter 3: Nick and Raquel meet at his senior show. He appreciates her bluntness.
Chapter 6: Their early intimacy includes her losing her virginity to him; he displays jealousy toward Julian and carries Astrid home afterward.
Chapter 10: Nick gifts Raquel an expensive Vivienne Tam dress and orchestrates dinner with his parents. At Campus Dance he encourages her to stay and dance, asserting her belonging.
Chapter 13: Nick disappears for a week after meeting Raquel’s mother and sister, ignoring her calls. Raquel realizes he makes it “intensely difficult to not put him first.”
Chapter 18: Through his mother, a reunion is arranged. Nick explains he was scared by class differences, but affirms that Raquel is “the real deal” and that with her he will be “unstoppable.” Raquel remains unsettled by his condescension.
Chapter 27: Nick cuts Raquel’s hair without permission. She leaves him and recognizes their relationship was built on dominance and submission.
Chapter 33: After the breakup, Nick’s mother sends Raquel an early Anita de Monte photograph as a gift, implying a lasting but now distant connection.

Relationships

With Raquel: Their relationship is marked by an imbalance of power. Nick controls the pace: he decides when to disappear, when to return, and what gifts or experiences she should accept. He frames her refusal to prioritize him as an issue with her own self-worth. After cutting her hair, Raquel realizes she had deferred to him in the same way previous women have deferred to men like Jack Martin. The ending of the novel shows Raquel reclaiming her agency, partly by rejecting Nick’s version of her.

With his mother Linda Fitzsimmons: Linda is a powerful art collector who owns pieces by Anita de Monte. She orchestrates the reunion with Raquel and dismissively calls Anita a “pushy Cuban thing.” Nick is clearly shaped by her expectations; he admits to being “freaked out” by class differences after his parents met Raquel’s family.

With his sister Astrid: Nick is dismissive of Astrid’s struggles, calling her drug use attention-seeking. His attitude reinforces the novel’s theme that women’s pain is often trivialized by the men closest to them.

Key Decisions and Consequences

Disappearing for a week: Nick’s decision to vanish after meeting Raquel’s family forces her into a painful week of research on Jack Martin, during which she discovers the suppressed story of Anita de Monte’s murder. This hidden knowledge ultimately empowers Raquel to reject the canonical art history she was taught.

Cutting Raquel’s hair without consent: This act is the final straw. Raquel immediately leaves Nick’s apartment and afterward reads Anita’s work at the library, understanding how institutional bias has shaped her own tastes and her deference to Nick. The haircut becomes a symbol of the larger violation of her autonomy.

Returning to Raquel through his mother: By using his mother to arrange a reunion, Nick avoids full accountability. His apology focuses on his own fears and his admiration for Raquel as “the real deal,” but does not acknowledge the power he wields over her. Raquel accepts the kiss but remains “unsettled,” a decision that plants the seeds for her eventual independence.

Theme and Symbol Connections

Erasure of women artists: Nick’s mother owns Anita’s work but dismisses her as a “pushy Cuban thing.” Nick himself never engages with Anita’s story; his presence in the novel helps illustrate how the art world’s gatekeepers—wealthy, white families like the Fitzsimmonses—perpetuate the erasure of women like Anita. The photograph eventually passed to Raquel by Nick’s mother becomes a totem of Anita’s haunting and legacy.

Class and privilege: Nick’s wealth is effortless: expensive gifts, a Newport sailboat, Kiehl’s hand cream. He is shocked to discover that Raquel’s New York is different from his, a realization that highlights the class and privilege chasm between them. Yet he values her precisely because she has clawed her way into his world against the odds.

Identity and belonging: Nick initially makes Raquel feel that she belongs (he tells her to stay and dance at Campus Dance, saying the campus is hers). But his control undermines her self-trust. Her struggle to hold on to her identity and belonging is mirrored in her relationship with him.

Power and control: Nick’s manipulation—turning her refusals into personal slights, controlling her schedule, cutting her hair—embodies the micro‑aggressions that keep Raquel small. This dynamic echoes the larger systems of power and control that allow men like Jack Martin to dominate women artists.

Book-Specific Questions and Answers

1. Why does Nick disappear for a week after meeting Raquel’s family?
Nick becomes frightened by the class differences between them. He tells Raquel that seeing her mother and sister made him realize they are from “different New Yorks” and that he panicked about whether the relationship could work long-term.

2. What does Nick do that finally causes Raquel to leave him?
He cuts her hair without asking her permission. Raquel realizes this act of physical dominance is part of a larger pattern of submission, and she immediately leaves his apartment, ending the relationship.

3. How does Nick view Raquel’s background?
Nick is condescending toward Raquel’s working-class roots, though he frames it as admiration. He calls her “the real deal” because she earned her place at Brown without privilege, but he also implies she wanted to escape her family. Raquel feels “confused” and unsettled by his framing.

4. What is the significance of Nick’s mother owning Anita de Monte’s artwork?
Linda Fitzsimmons is a wealthy collector who bought pieces from Tilly Barber’s circle. She dismisses Anita as a “pushy Cuban thing,” revealing how the elite art world reduces women artists to caricatures. The art ends up stored in a penthouse, reinforcing the novel’s theme of art’s commodification and the erasure of Anita’s legacy.

5. How does Nick compare to Jack Martin in the novel?
Both men are controlling and insecure, use women to bolster their egos, and dismiss the women around them. However, Jack’s control is violent and ultimately homicidal, while Nick’s is more subtle—emotional manipulation and violations of bodily autonomy (cutting hair). Both represent structures of male dominance that Raquel and Anita must resist.

Conclusion

Nick Fitzsimmons functions as a contemporary echo of the patriarchal art world that silenced Anita de Monte. His relationship with Raquel dramatizes the cost of trying to belong in a system built on exclusion. By the novel’s end, Raquel has learned to see Nick’s control for what it was, just as she has learned to see the institutional bias that shaped her education. The photograph she keeps from his mother—Anita’s early work—becomes a reminder of her own worth and of the artists who were erased before she came.

For a deeper look at the novel’s central themes, visit the themes page, the ending explained, or the questions and answers.