“It’s hard to remember someone when you don’t know what they look like. Because A changes from day to day, it’s impossible to choose a memory and have it mean more than that single day. No matter how I picture A, it’s not going to be what A looks like now. I remember A as a boy and as a girl, as tall and short, skin and hair all different colors. A blur. But the blur takes the shape of how A made me feel, and that may be the most accurate shape of all.”
This passage is not the opening paragraph of the novel, but it is the second and it sets the stage for the bulk of what is to come in this novel. Those not already familiar with the book need to know this is the third novel in a series of books about the same characters. “A” is a non-gender being of mysterious origin who not only can but must inhabit the bodies of human beings. Rhiannon a human female introduced in the book that started this series. In this passage, she is describing what it is like to be friends with a being that shifts from body to body, never knowing for sure what that being is actually going to look like. Since appearance is fundamental to the human concept of identity, this instability is quite naturally a complication to any sort of relationship.
“It’s my mother waking me, and she’s hurrying me because I get first shower and have to be quick. When I turn the light on in the bathroom, I swear I hear the insects scatter. The water pressure is an ungenerous trickle, and when I quickly get out, both of the towels are still damp from the day before. As I pat myself as dry as I can get, I discover that my name is Joe and my family’s lived here for over two months after getting kicked out of our apartment.”
As this quote illustrates, the book has more than one narrative voice. In addition to chapters narrated by Rhiannon, there are also chapters narrated by the character known only as “A.” As previously stated, a significant portion of this novel relates to the experiences of being an entity that can shift from one body to another. One of the results of this necessary imposition upon these beings is that this means the narrator is also a completely different human character speaking through their narration. This example demonstrates how things work, but so do other multiple examples throughout the book. The thing about “A” and others like them is that they must operate on two levels of consciousness. “A” is narrating this passage but appears to others as a kid named Joe. “A” now has Joe’s memories, but it is not necessarily a reciprocal state of sharing. The significance of this quote is that it is essentially repeated—with changes in details, of course—throughout the story.
“Because once you have preferences, once you start thinking of people in terms of better or worse — then suddenly there will be bad ones and good ones. And I’ll treat the bad ones badly, just because I have preferences. I don’t believe in that. I don’t believe any body is inherently better or worse than any other. The outside world makes its judgments. And I’m sure the people themselves make their own judgments from the inside. But when I’m in there, I am not there to judge. I felt it happen a couple of months ago, when I was starting to see myself as I thought the outside world saw me. I could feel myself tilting into feeling I wasn’t the right size or the right gender.”
A story about genderless beings with no immediately identifiable racial characteristics inhabiting human bodies is bound to have thematic commentary on identity and judgment. This quote has “A” talking to another of his species who wants to be called “X” and offering some advice based on experience. At the same time, it is practical advice, it is also a message underlining the themes of the set-up. The narrator’s admission to experiencing negative self-esteem based on the external human body they occupy is a pointed allusion to how people are judged based on what they look like rather than what it is inside. The reference to no single body capable of “A” can inhabit being inherently better or worse than any other is another allusion to judgment. It is one that speaks implicitly to issues of racism and sexism as well as other types of prejudicial judgment based on group appearance.
