Nico is an award-winning author who’s published work in many revered (or reviled) magazines & outlets (Rolling Stone, Esquire, Harper’s Bazaar, Buzzfeed, The Guardian, Vice, and Fox among others), so they’re already impressive before the book is opened or the shoes come off.
Their style of journalism can be described as investigative, though for this project the word immersive came to mind. They reached out to several subjects across the country (pity Hawaii and maybe even Colorado) and were given access to hang out with (“shadow” is too passive a word for their process – to that end, he sought Enthusiastic Consent from his subjects and their families) each teen and their family for 2.5 weeks. They alternated days between child and parents, but each stop became a full-on deep dive – nearly 20 days per subject, per state, absorbing the full environment.
And the results bear that out.
What came through with power during this reading, maybe because of the sections’ selection, was that Nico played off type. The kiddo they discovered in the chapter read from was Ruby, from Texas. Ruby, a sartorialist (a film noir blonde!) and Ruby’s parents spend time in their church with the congregation at St Mary’s. Which is where Ruby came out.
This is where the story, or subject, choice separates from any kind of pious reportage. Nico erases the usual lines that tend to define this kind of reporting. All pretense and surface preciousness slip away. Willingly attending a church service comes across as atypical for a scene in a book about trans kids finding joy in a turbulent era. And the atypicality of it is a real drag! Here’s to reveling in the joy and hope that Lang brings to these stories.
When given another morsel from the remembered moment of Ruby’s coming out, Nico notes that Ruby recalls not how she felt but what she wore. Those sandals, the earrings, and the good hair day. The section closes with Ruby’s orthodox view that, “Jesus loves me, and he loves you too. Frankly that’s the most important thing to me.”
Hell yeah. Shine on you crazy … precious gemstone.
No Demons, No Saints
As we hope will happen in every stop along Nico’s tour, an attentive, engaged, incisive, observant, unsentimental listener in the audience raised the kind of remark that I’m sure an author appreciated (though this particular one received no snaps) by pointing out the simple but essential fact that the teens Nico covered in their book are portrayed as humanly composed as what they are. None of them rose the status of bulletproof angel, none sank into scourge.
Again, this is the kind of objectivity that is essential when covering a divisive topic like this so ANY reader who comes across the book immediately senses the author is not choosing a side, does not have an agenda (other than what’s evident in the topic & title).
Nico’s honesty during the Q&A alluded to this when they spoke about their Virginia subject Michael and Michael’s mom, Dawn. Michael is a black gender fluid kid and Dawn is his white, lesbian mom. Gauging from the way the story was told in the room this past Tuesday, Dawn could be under some impression that, because she’s also non-cis, she may, in some instances, allow herself some freedoms of understanding she hasn’t quite earned - thinking she understands some intricate nuances of Michaels day to day because she’s also on the other side of the proverbial tracks, not quite grasping that the tracks are in Oklahoma and the “other side” stretches to California’s singed sandy beach – somewhere she can’t see and has never been, while still being west of Arkansas.
Nico was honest about how tough it was to remain an objective journalist, to stand aside while still seeing clearly how Michael was being impacted. And while Nico didn’t get into the details, who knows how much impact Michael was at risk of absorbing … which is why it was ultimately a human relief to hear Nico acknowledge how hard it was to not judge Dawn. You get the certain idea that Nico isn’t the kind of journalist who would watch someone take a beating in a protest and never step in for fear of breaking the fourth wall.
Nico Wanted to Write Their Diary for Them
That willingness to acknowledge the fourth wall, to engage in what someone that night called Advocacy journalism - which, again, harkens back to the choice of subject matter more than the lens through which that subject is covered - does work to crystalize another thesis that resonated: to write the book, Nico wanted spend time embedded with them, not so much in a flurry of Q&A blast but in a fly-on-the-wall, uncle you never met before way.
From the sounds of it, that approach was what unlocked the project’s necessary trust component and relieved both the kids and the parents of the protective tendencies of anyone navigating a lifestyle with such little cultural precedence to draw on. Nico’s Middlebury tactics are something that can generate excitement for their other & next works.
There was talk at the end of the Q&A about the next project(s) Nico is exploring. Under threat of cavity search investigation we won’t reveal those details but at one point talk of a BOYHOOD-esque approach to a follow-up found its way to the floor and that was genuinely interesting.
Knowing how Nico covered the topic and the subjects this time out, it stands to reason that a revisit sometime down the road would put the story of this time and this place in a capsule the way they thought of doing … with some pyramidic scroll over hammering brass.
We’ll line up for that sequel.
