(courtesy Scholastic)
If you have grown up and are comfortably ensconced as a member of the heteronormative majority, you will have likely seen little to trouble your secure worldview.
Almost everything caters to the idea that society, and indeed civilisation as a whole, has been shaped in its entirety by white middle-aged men who crafted the world in their image and then brought in a system that perpetuates and sustains through a host of different systems and norms.
But if like Sam, the plucky non-binary twelve-year-old protagonist (who walks a pug dog called Nacious; see what they did there?) of Alex Gino’s delightfully meaningful novel, Alice Austen Lived Here, you have grown up, or are growing up, as a queer person, you will be all too aware that such a heteronormative focus, while reasonably accurate, leaves out a hugely salient fact – that many people who have substantial impacts on society from politics to the arts to science and well beyond, are not even a little bit straight.
They don’t, rather gloriously it must be said, fit into that cosily incomplete idea that everything of worth ever done by humans has been done by straight people, and they defy the incredibly restrictive notion that to be of any value or do anything of lasting importance that you fit, neatly hand in glove, into a heteronormative mold.
While she’s not even a teenager, Sam and her similarly non-binary TJ already get that intuitively and so, when a history class project requires them to document the life of a significant figure from Staten Island history, they immediately decide it must be someone who’s queer.
We walked back to 141 St. Mark’s Place with Nacious. I knew every crack in the walkway to the entrance, the musty smell of the mailbox area in the outer lobby, and the number of stairs between each floor. I thought I knew a lot about the place, but I had no idea there was history to be discovered.
And just any history. Queer history.
But who?!
That’s the million-dollar question, and while some of the other kids in class choose the very white ubiquitous Henry Hudson (he of the river etc etc) and other Dead Straight Cisgender White Men (DSGWM) historical figures, Sam and TJ decide to go further afield.
They receive considerable help from Sam’s downstair’s married couple, whom Sam hangs out with a lot – she has a loving single mum but loves seeing femme Jess, non-binary Val and their baby Evie whom Sam dotes on – and 82-year-old Mrs Hansen who, it turns out if Sam had ever bothered to ask (she didn’t but she’s 12 so be a little understanding that it never occurred to her) is a lesbian of considerably longstanding and a retired local school teacher.
It’s these members of what turns out to be Sam’s extended chosen family who not only switch her on to how important it is to celebrate not only what someone did but who they actually are, with Gino’s dedication at the start of the book a love letter to the importance of not having your authentic self erased.
For the rainbow of people who have gotten us here. For our vibrant queer and trans communities now, and for the ineffable future. Language changes but the need to be ourselves doesn’t.
This theme comes to the fore in this warmly written and emotionally honest novel again and again, stressing in the most inclusively affirming ways possible that it’s not enough to be seen, that we must be seen for who actually are.
Intuitively knowing that but bolstered by hearing it from adult figures they love and respect – Alice Austen Lived Here is also wonderful because there are times when Sam gets it very wrong and reacts unfairly or without thought which, again, makes sense because she’s a kid and Gino lets her be, refreshingly warts and all – Sam and I put together the project to end all projects, with the goal to win the honour of having their figure of choice have a status created in their honour in front of city hall.
The choose the titular 20th-century photographer of note, Alice Austen, who lived on Staten Island and with her female partner Gertrude for more than 50 years in an age when that wasn’t just an act of rebellion against prevailing societal mores but downright dangerous (the same, sadly, could be said of our increasingly anti-queer age) and they fight hard to have her recognised for her achievements and her authentic queer personhood.
Whether they or not, or get their statue erected for all the world to see, must be left to the wholly pleasurable reading of Alice Austen Lived Here but suffice to say, the novel is deliciously lovely and thoughtfully charming exploration of the importance of highlighting queer history, not simply for our sake so we are aware of the great heritage to which we belong (yes, your reviewer is very queer himself) but so the wider world is too.
‘If you wanted, you could maybe come on Friday’, I offered.
‘There’s nowhere I’d rather be,’ said Jess.
What’s lovely about Alice Austen Lived Here, and what makes it compelling and persuasive reading for queer and allies alike, is that it is no raging polemic.
Rather, its championing of queer history and identity is done in sweetly uplifting but no less meaningfully impactful ways, with the novel’s life-affirming ending reminding us that sometimes we can emerge on top of a system that often seems dedicated to pushing us as far down out of sight as it can reasonably, and unreasonably, manage.
Powering the book’s charming narrative are Sam and TJ and the galaxy of lovely queer souls and delightful allies around them, people who guide these two passionate young queers to a place where their dedication to being their authentic selves can find its fullest expression.
Alice Austen Lived Here is an enlivening and quite wondrously uplifting read not because it says that needs to be said, but because of the way it says it and who is says it through; as a community that is often marginalised and isolated, the importance of found family, which Sam has in abundance, is paramount and its centering at the heart of the book’s narrative is a warm hug that really matters in some powerfully practical ways.
Reading books like Alice Austen Lived Here is good for anyone of any age, but especially for younger people because it takes their youthful passion and turns it into something lasting and alive, something that will go on to do great things of its own and add to the rich, storied queer history which is all around us if we, and saliently, the wider world, just care to look for it.