This week, our Free Culture Book Club reads Nevada, chapters 25 (part One) to 6 (part Two).

Pink flowers

To give this series some sense of organization, check out some basic facts without much in the way of context.

This should go without saying—even though I plan to repeat it with every Book Club installment—but Content Advisories do not suggest any sort of judgment on my part, only topics that come up in the work that I noticed and might benefit from a particular mood or head space for certain audiences. I provide it to help you make a decision, rather than a decision in and of itself.

Nevada

I can’t find any direct, Free-licensed information on this book but the Wikipedia article describes it as follows.

Nevada: A Novel is the debut novel from author Imogen Binnie, released by Topside Press in 2013. Nevada follows the story of Maria Griffiths, a trans woman living in Brooklyn, who embarks on a road trip headed towards the West Coast. In the years following its release, it has been credited by literary critic Stephanie Burt as having starting a transgender literary movement and inspiring authors such as Torrey Peters and Casey Plett.

It goes on to point out that it sold around ten thousand copies before Topside went out of business, leading fans to take on distribution duties until other companies have picked it up more recently.

I should note that we may or may not have a film adaptation coming, though the director recently left the project.

What Works Well?

We finally get some indications, by—shock of shocks—allowing the narrative to acknowledge the agency of other characters, that the story has at least some awareness of Maria’s self-absorption and disengagement.

And I guess that the interaction with the drug dealer may have made me smile a bit.

What Works…Less Well?

What do we mean by less well? Free Culture exists as a special kind of idea. By licensing a work appropriately, the creator gives each of us permission, authority, and power to make the work our own. This section tries to remind us all of that, by indicating areas of the project where you, dear reader, might consider it as an invitation to get involved with the project.
And yes, sometimes complains slip through, too…

By switching around to focus on other characters, a couple of times briefly, then for what looks like the long haul, it exposes that the dismissive disengagement doesn’t actually come from Maria, because everybody speaks and thinks in sentence fragments, hatred of their circumstances, and dismissal of having any interest in the situation at hand. They all sound like they’d feel happier not having any involvement in this book, which doesn’t exactly make it a pleasant read.

Then, in switching focus, I’ll withhold judgment on James for the moment, but Nicole feels like a missed opportunity of massive proportions. By assuring us of her (ahem) “feminist” credentials, such as quoting famous feminists and “trying” to become a lesbian, it both positions her as a complete fool, and sets her up for the book to blame her for every problem that James has, rather than (for example) his drug habit or self-loathing.

Opportunities

Other than buying the book where available, I don’t see any means to contribute.

What’s Adaptable?

I didn’t spot anything new in this section, though I admit to not checking every reference that slipped by.

Next

Coming up next week, we’ll continue Nevada, with part Two, chapters 7 to 21.

As mentioned previously, by the way, the list of potential works to discuss has run low, so I need to ask for help, again. If you know of any works—or want to create them—that fit these posts (fictional, narrative, Free Culture, available to the public, and not by creators who we’ve already discussed), please tell me about them. Every person who points me to at least one appropriate work with an explanation will receive a free membership on my ☕ Buy Me a Coffee page.

Anyway, while we wait for that, what did everybody else think about the book so far?

Credits: The header image is FLOWER 03 - PAINTBRUSH, sp (6-16-11) northeast Nevada by Alan Schmierer, released into the public domain by the photographer. The artist released the actual cover under a non-commercial license.