It was a pleasure and an honor to narrate BEING EMILY, by Rachel Gold. This novel was actually first published in 2012. It was also a finalist for the 25th Annual Lambda Literary Awards! I narrate its 2018 re-release, featuring updated language and terminology, with an introduction by literary critic and Harvard Professor Stephanie Burt, who writes:
Being Emily is far from the first book—or first YA book— with trans girl characters, but it appears to be the first novel in English (it’s surely the first YA novel) with a trans girl’s voice at its center, the first one you could give a trans girl and feel good about the idea that she’ll see herself in it. (As I did; as I do.)
And I could not agree more. I highly, highly recommend this book not just to young Trans girls, but Trans people of all genders and ages, and also to the people who love them — partners, friends, siblings, parents.
Interspersed throughout the book are chapters focusing on Emily’s girlfriend, Claire, who is cisgender, bisexual, and Christian. Claire loves Emily (whom she has known as her “boyfriend” — Emily’s pre-transition “persona,” Chris), but also has to go through uncomfortable growth as she navigates her relationship with Emily and with gender, and reconciles the new information she is learning with her religion and culture. In many ways, she models what it is to actively love someone even when you do not yet understand their identity.
I felt very close to this book, as like Emily, I grew up in the Midwest in a small town full of religious people, with abundantly casual homophobia and transphobia. I made the directorial choice to use the lower range of my voice for when Emily has to act like a boy while she is closeted. I wanted to imbue Emily’s story with my own experience of “trying to sound masculine,” and to subtly share how the daily effort to mask who you truly are can be fatiguing and demoralizing. I love the opportunity to add something emotionally tangible to audio narration that typically only exists in-between the words on the page and in the reader’s imagination. My hope is that listeners will literally hear Emily becoming herself in the way she talks, and feel closer to her because of it.
I’m vary happy to share this title with you all. Many thanks to the team at Tantor for this one!
🖤🤎❤🧡💛💚💙💜 { progress rainbow heart emojis }
Cheers!
Nicky
