Beautyland

Adina joins a gym and meets her instructor, Yolanda K., who is enthusiastic and encouraging. Adina asks her superiors if she is doing okay, and they assure her that she is. When she asks if they are doing okay, they respond, “we are attempting not to die” (199). Adina asks for details but doesn’t get a response.

Adina’s mother gives her a tour of her growing garden. She’s in an education program. Meanwhile, Adina’s apartment is broken into, but all that the thieves take is a pillowcase. One day, when the train makes a sound that she recognizes as a word in her first language, Adina thinks, “Even though she is alone, she feels surrounded by family” (205). She wonders how many others like her are out there.

Adina regularly meets Toni, and one day, at the restaurant, a man approaches Adina and identifies himself as her father.

Toni, Dominic, and Adina drive back to Philadelphia for Christmas. Adina reflects on how few relationships she has, but she doesn’t want to have a relationship with her father. Her mother has a new partner named Charles. Adina continues sending faxes describing human beliefs and habits. At a Halloween party, a famous writer claims that she’s an alien.

One day, Adina meets a man named Miguel. He says that he’s an alien, too, and Adina wonders if he is one of the others. Miguel, who is a pianist, invites Adina to a performance with him and a singer named Sarah Glide.

Adina continues to attend classes at the gym, finding an odd inspiration in Yolanda K.’s teaching style. Toni asks Adina if she would consider publishing her notes. Meanwhile, Adina continues to connect with Miguel. He stays over one night and Adina tells him about the aquarium that she visited as a child. She longs for a connection with him that “will maybe bridge the distance between her and everything, between her and herself” (223). Adina finishes typing up her faxes and sends them to Toni. She makes Miguel lasagna, and he plays a song from the Voyager’s Golden Record. He sees shapes and images when he hears sounds. Miguel wants to have sex, but Adina keeps remembering Amadeo’s penis.

Sarah Glide is mean to Adina in a way that reminds her of the J girls. On a brighter note, Toni’s editor wants to publish Adina’s book. One day, Adina goes to Coney Island with Toni and Dominic, who says that all three of them are queer. Later, Adina has sex with Miguel, but she doesn’t feel pleasure. She asks him what he meant about being an alien and understands that he uses it figuratively to describe how he feels alienated. She accuses her superiors of lying about others like her. Their response is to ask if Earth is suitable for them to live. They say that they have about a year to live. Meanwhile, Toni has a mammogram that detects a lump in her breast.

Adina dates Miguel but is not comfortable having sex. Earth to her seems a backward place in terms of the entire galaxy. In 2015, SETI astronomers find an unusually bright quasar, very young relative to the rest of the universe.

Toni is diagnosed with stage three breast cancer. Adina continues to experience her episodes that she calls “Something Else.” She works out at the gym and thinks, “[O]ur puny bodies cannot withstand any of this, how do we get through even one day?” (237).

Adina’s memoir is published as “Alien Opus.” She gives a public reading that is well attended and shares an excerpt about the need to be seen and not be invisible. The response is positive, and “[m]ore humans empathize with [Adina’s] alien experience than anyone anticipated” (245). Adina’s book sells out its print run. She asks her superiors again about the others and, when they refuse to tell her, unplugs her fax machine.

Toni goes through chemotherapy. Miguel convinces Adina to watch the final episode of a TV show, and the episode upsets her. Toni reports that she saw Dakota, who is now a corporate lawyer. Pilots in San Diego report seeing unidentified flying objects when their instruments are upgraded. Discussions are ongoing over her book; one reader decides that Adina has autism. Adina gives another reading, and someone asks if her superiors are happy with her work. She decides not to answer the question.

Miguel leaves Adina and goes to L.A. Adina tells her mother that she doesn’t understand why people want boyfriends or husbands when they take up so much energy. Adina’s mother laments that she must have failed as a parent.

Adina sets a trap for a mouse in her apartment, which she has named Roger. The mouse dies. Miguel returns from L.A. to break up with her, saying that it’s like they’re from two different planets. Adina turns on the fax machine and sends repeated faxes, but she gets no response. She watches the news for reports on extraterrestrial sightings and misses the places and people of her childhood. Adina and her mother shop for Toni, whose treatment has not been successful.

One day, Adina finds Butternut, her dog, dead beneath her desk. Following the vet’s advice, she puts the dog’s body in her freezer until she is ready to say goodbye. Adina is with Toni in her last moments and imagines a spark of light in Toni’s chest glowing and lifting away into the air, far above the city. Toni’s body goes still, but Adina thinks, “The light does not dim and continues to travel” (272).