Nevada

A Novel

By: Imogen Binnie

Narrated by: Imogen Binnie

Length: 6 hrs and 40 mins

Publisher's summary

2022 New Yorker Best Books of the Year, Long-listed

This program is read by the author.

A beloved and blistering cult classic and finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Fiction finally back in print, Nevada follows a disaffected trans woman as she embarks on a cross-country road trip.

Maria Griffiths is almost thirty and works at a used bookstore in New York City while trying to stay true to her punk values. She’s in love with her bike but not with her girlfriend, Steph. She takes random pills and drinks more than is good for her, but doesn’t inject anything except, when she remembers, estrogen, because she’s trans. Everything is mostly fine until Maria and Steph break up, sending Maria into a tailspin, and then onto a cross-country trek in the car she steals from Steph. She ends up in the backwater town of Star City, Nevada, where she meets James, who is probably but not certainly trans, and who reminds Maria of her younger self. As Maria finds herself in the awkward position of trans role model, she realizes that she could become James’s savior—or his downfall.

One of the most beloved cult novels of our time and a landmark of trans literature, Imogen Binnie’s Nevada is a blistering, heartfelt, and evergreen coming-of-age story, and a punk-smeared excavation of marginalized life under capitalism. Guided by an instantly memorable, terminally self-aware protagonist—and featuring a new afterword by the author—Nevada is the great American road novel flipped on its head for a new generation.

A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

©2022 Imogen Binnie (P)2022 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

"Nevada is a book that changed my life: it shaped both my worldview and personhood, making me the writer I am. And it did so by the oldest of methods, by telling a wise, hilarious, and gripping story." —Torrey Peters, author of Detransition, Baby

Soooo Good!!

One of the best books I've ever read; full stop. Lived up to the hype and then some. It gives voice to a real trans experience and isn't afraid to tell the whole truth and pull exactly 0 punches. Not sure if the author reads these or not but I have to say thank you. This story hit so close to home and I can't express how much it means to hear something that so beautifully articulates an example of an internal trans experience. The new afterword was really cool to hear as well! Life changing Imogen, life changing.

Shockingly Relatable

I loved the style this book was written in. I also loved how relatable it was. I found myself silent multiple times while listening to this book, because the characters put words to the thoughts and experiences I’ve had throughout my life. It was so painfully relatable I found myself crying several times! Highly recommend this book if you are trans. Even if you aren’t, I think it’s an excellent thing to read in order to better understand + empathize with the trans experience.

Kooky cool

What a ride, would listen again. Great afterword with lots of fantastic reading recommendations. Go for it!

This book read me

And I’m pissed about it. Like., even bringing up fictionmania?! You kidding me? This one hurt me so so much to read, but the afterward gave me so much closure.

A Must

I don't know if you could call this book the beginning of modern trans literature, but it is important, and if you are trans it will help you to understand your world better. It is brutally honest. And it is beautiful. It also incorporates a lot of great insights into not just trans, but the nature of gender, male privilege, radical feminism, anarchism and much more.

It taught me a lot as a trans woman and an author.

Ellen Adele Harper

Listen to the afterword!

This story is lovely. I loved hearing what other authors she loves, and how the story came to be. Absolutely a story about the trans experience that can perhaps only at this point in time be written from a trans perspective.

I love this book!

My heart goes out to these beautiful troubled characters, both lost and wandering on their gender journey. A blessing that they crossed paths and though the story could have gone in many different ways (could have been horrible!) it was a soft landing, unremarkable and heroin free)
I came out in my late fifties (I’ve been transitioning since I was 5) and daily wonder what my younger self would have been like. I wish I’d met my Maria. Instead I just thought I was a f**king weirdo and kept it to myself till I couldn’t any longer. So many gems! Whatever.

Why Didn’t I Know About This Book Earlier?

As a trans woman who came out late, my first thought upon finishing this amazing book was, “wow, this would have been so helpful to have read years ago.” The characters and the plot line are merely the skeleton on which Ms. Binnie overlays her amazing dialogue that constructs and de-constructs many of the most personal and important elements of being trans. Her observations of being trans are completely authentic and are obviously lived (who else would know about Fictionmania, lol). A wonderful book and a towering achievement. So glad it is now in my life.

I love this, love it love it love it love

🖤💜🖤💜

read this, it's amazing, read it read it read it read it read it 💜🖤💜