(via Progress Never Stops For Nostalgic Transsexuals) It’s a weird feeling to read shitloads of fiction all your life, and then read this book, and realize it’s the first book written specifically for someone like you to read it: “Gender may be a social construct, but so are cars, and if you ignore them, you still get hit.” I love how Imogen doesn’t give a fuck about her audience before she gives a fuck about trans women, we’re the primary audience and Jesus Christ that’s cathartic to have that as a reader. I’m going to let writer Casey Plett explain a bit more about that:Īnd, duh, I love how it’s a novel specifically about trans women, for trans women, written by a trans woman (any of which has rarely existed let alone all three at once) and that it talks about shit that probably only trans women know about and in a totally real and unbullshit or snow-covered way (see above re: experience drinking whiskey and/or crying and/or dumbass giggling).

The obviously groundbreaking aspect of Binnie’s novel is that it’s a piece of fiction written by a trans woman, about trans women, with trans women as the intended audience. Nevada is so many things that are so refreshing to see in queer literature. Imogen Binnie knows what she is talking about. The descriptions of dissociation were uncomfortably close to home, for someone who’s dated someone who did this. Her girlfriend actually lies to her about cheating on her because she so desperately wants a strong reaction, any reaction from Maria. It’s that she’s so used to dissociating as a survival mechanism that even after coming out and transitioning she can’t turn it off. Hers is the kind of voice that brings up some seriously fucked-up shit in one breath and says ‘whatever’ in the next. Maria is neurotic, there’s no doubt about that, and she’s cynical, and punk, and sarcastic, and (as Danika wrote in her review) post-post everything. Of course, since I’m cisgender I can’t pretend to understand the emotional, physical, and mental stuff that’s trans specific in this novel, but I will say that I found that living in Maria’s head for a few days a challenging, heartbreaking, scary, breath-taking experience.Īnd this is definitely a novel where you feel like you’re living (trapped?) in someone else’s head for a while. She’s in her late twenties, she’s living in Brooklyn with her cis girlfriend, working in a bookstore in Manhattan, and trying to deal with life and her shit. Nevada follows the life of a queer trans woman named Maria. I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to get to reading Nevada by Imogen Binnie! I finished it a few days before Christmas and am still feeling the impact of this powerful, thought-provoking novel.

Nevada a novel imogen binnie