Nevada by Imogen Binnie
★★★★☆
Nevada was first published nearly ten years ago in 2013, but it is only the tech, the slang, and some aspects of the drug-fuelled punk aesthetic that seem to have aged. As a novel narrated by a trans woman (Maria), its take on relationships and the long process of figuring out your sense of self still feels fresh and important today.
The book largely manages to steer clear of cliché and many have praised Binnie for writing a trans novel that finally ‘gets it’. Here, we have a story that focuses on trans experience, but that isn’t about a character’s transition; a depiction of a trans mentorship/parenting scenario that feels realistically awkward and unrehearsed; and a road trip without the classic American resolution.
While Binnie’s novel has been hailed as essential transliterature, it has occasionally been criticised for monologuing, with lengthy diversions on trans thought that sometimes sound like a blog post or a rant. But, cleverly, Binnie’s decision to write Maria as a popular blogger makes these sections feel less shoehorned in and more like the believable stream-of-consciousness of a writer.
I found Maria to be a frustrating character at times: her constant breaks at work, her baffling inability to remember to take estrogen injections (come on, just put a reminder in your phone!), and her truly awful lack of communication with her partner/ex Steph, (especially when she steals Steph’s car with barely a texted apology) lost her some sympathy with me. Nevertheless, Maria’s flaws also provided some of the book’s most relatable and insightful moments (the bad sex, the dissociation, the pure joy of cycling in the city).
The second half of the novel charts Maria’s drive west and her meeting with James, a young Wal-mart clerk whom Maria suspects is trans but that he doesn’t know it yet. Her attempts to mentor James and clumsily force a trans epiphany on the teen are tragic, and both James’ and Maria’s stories are left unresolved in a desert casino. The ending may seem unsatisfying, but on reflection, the way this novel rejects the standard narrative arc is so much more believable – and so appropriate for a novel that breaks away from the typical ‘trans story’.
