Just another queer who read NEVADA for the first time
A book review
I'm a quarantrans which means that one of my first forays into gender-queer life and community was listening to Gender Reveal. Tuck Woodstock’s podcast was the place where I heard someone say, “If you really want to be trans, you can be trans.” And then I was like, “Okay, then I guess I’m trans!”
My identity has turned out to be a lot more complicated than that; But the thing that has consistently grounded my gender exploration in joy and expansiveness has been diving into the “canon,” of trans literature and media. I read Transgender History and Stone Butch Blues (or the first half of Stone Butch Blues) and have a list going on trello of all the books I’ve heard of on Gender Reveal that I want to read. I couldn’t find a copy of The Sluts, so I read something else by Dennis Cooper and hated it, but I was still excited about how much I was reading the books. Reading these stories makes me feel like a part of a history and of a lineage, and whenever I get my hands on a copy of something that has a big reputation in the trans community, I feel like the sun shines extra bright on me. I especially felt that way when I picked up Imogen Binnie’s Nevada.
Nevada has kind of a big reputation. Some people say that it’s the start of the “modern wave of transgender literature,” or that it’s the first of book to do x-y-z thing. I try to approach the hype with a detached and ironic twist, but really, I’m a pretty eager beaver - I had the book up on a pedestal about what it was going to give me.
I started reading it after staying out with a friend an hour and a half later than we intended, while crashing on another friend’s couch. I got sucked in right away, called by the book’s manic energy, hooked on Maria Griffith’s very New York City feeling sense of self-sabatoge. Maria processes her gender on a blog (relatable), can’t seem to change the things in her life that she knows she needs to change, and addresses relationship issues with avoidance. This book happens when she’s 29 and has big Saturn Return energy, in that people say that your Saturn Return is really hard, and you often end up feeling like you’re losing everything.
I didn’t realize how much of the book centered on a relationship Maria forms with someone who might maybe end up being trans possibly, but maybe he’s just an autogynephile? (his words) The inside of James’s head was really the place where my love for Nevada went from, “Wow I am reading a book with a huge reputation,” to feeling something really deep down in my belly.
I’m really grateful that Binnie explored what feels like a very fertile scenario: what happens when an out trans person offers to answer all of an egg’s questions? What would have happened to me if… Nevada explores the fantasy scenario with realism - neither James, nor Maria leave the book with every single one of their problems solved. But there is that moment when James takes a hit from his bong and answers a question with a scared, “I dunno,” and reading that moment felt like a huge relief to me. It was really one of the first books I’ve ever read that articulated things that me and a lot of other trans people I know have gone through. If there wasn’t so much erotic asphyxiation and heroin in this book, I’d probably give it to my parents to try and get them to understand a little bit better what not-being-trans-when-you’re-trans feels like.
Nevada was just re-released for the 10th anniversary, and I got my copy from Hello Hello Books in Rockland, ME. If you live in Portland, ME, I know Greenhand Books ordered a few copies. I also recommend ordering books you can’t find anywhere else in town through either Greenhand, or ABRAXAS.