Beautyland
Marie-Helene Bertino
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2024, $28
Inhabiting Mars has become a hot prospect, in part due to chest-thumping billionaires in a space race, technological advances, and the conditions on planet Earth, catalyzing a quest for metaphorically greener pastures. But what if other interplanetary species are doing the same with Earth—testing its viability by planting research envoys among us? Beautyland, the latest novel by Marie-Helene Bertino, explores this idea in a coming-of-age tale suffused with dark humor and rich imagination, written in a humorously sardonic tone.
Starting with her difficult birth, Adina struggles to find ease in the world. As a child, she dreams of a “shimmering area” that seems to be the surface of another planet. A cast-off fax machine, at first non-functioning, begins to spew sheets at her. (Bertino dispenses with scientific explanation.) She answers the faxes, becoming a de facto spy on Earth for those she deems her Superiors. The missives can be mundane: “YES, WE KNOW ABOUT HIM AND HIS TURTLENECKS,” they reply to her when she asks if they know about pop astronomer Carl Sagan. Or urgent: “IS EARTH SUITABLE FOR US TO LIVE?”
Adina’s father abandons the family early on, and she reads a book saying that fathers, like pies, can comprise slices of all kinds of people. (Sagan is a dad slice.) Her mother’s meager income means scrimping; dinner’s always chicken. They shop at Beautyland, which carries cheap perfume and pantyhose but holds the promise of small luxuries. Precociously intelligent, Adina doesn’t fit in. She is hypersensitive to sounds, particularly mouth noises. On a field trip to a planetarium, she hears Philip Glass, a revelation to her. She reads The Little Prince, whose tale both puzzles and inspires her. She eventually meets Toni, who becomes her best friend and soulmate. Adina continues faxing the aliens about Earth and its people. But where does she belong?
At times, Adina comes close to feeling accepted, but falls short. She joins a dance competition, asked by a clique of cool girls, only to be ejected after refusing to sleep with one of their brothers. After a well-received performance in “Our Town,” she applies for a drama scholarship, losing to a student whose essay was written by a consultant. We are reminded of the pain and awkwardness of growing up, of class divides, and being ostracized. And yet Adina keeps going, never quite having bought into the mirage of success or popularity. She moves to New York, an apt manifestation of an ad hoc community for those who don’t fit in elsewhere.
Bertino finds a balance among the fantastical, wryly descriptive, and poignant. Adina’s dog dies. “He must have woken sometime in the night, found his bed in the darkness, curled into sleep, and turned to stone.” She swaddles him and slides him into the freezer next to a bag of peas, where he keeps her company until she’s ready to bid farewell. After Toni dies from cancer, Adina recalls eating egg rolls with her. “Toni would always cut them in half, eat the insides, and save the crispy exoskeleton for last. She preferred to end with what she liked best.” This observation exemplifies the touching, unsentimental tone of Bertino’s style.
There’s also something refreshing about Bertino’s a priori approach to the scientific enigmas which dot the novel—not exactly sci-fi, but adjacent. Why, and how, does a fax machine serve as a go-between? She doesn’t explain, but describes its discovery as an interplanetary communication device in a matter-of-fact way—Adina’s mother digs it out of the trash, at first finding it inoperable—at the same time coloring her mother as thrifty and optimistic.
It’s a given in Beautyland that lifeforms exist on other planets, and that they can communicate in English (and operate a fax machine). The aliens are curious, upliftingly funny at times, and—like us—worried about existence. They’re not that different than we are—comforting to think we’re not alone in the universe, but troubling to think of Earth as an escape plan.
This article appears in March 2024.
