Beautyland

Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses death by suicide and anti-gay and anti-asexual bias.

In northeast Philadelphia, in September 1977, in the middle of a craze over the movie Star Wars, Térèse has difficulty birthing her daughter, Adina. At the same time, the spacecraft Voyager I launches from Florida holding a record of earthly sounds. Astronomer Carl Sagan is responsible for selecting the Voyager’s contents and “launching this bottle into the cosmic ocean” (4). Tiny Adina looks alien to her mother. Adina’s home planet, a planet near the star Vega, is 300,000 light years away, and she is a probe sent to collect information.

Adina and her mother and father live in an apartment complex across from Auto World, which has an inflatable flying man stationed outside. Adina’s mother pulls a fax machine from the neighbor’s trash and puts it in Adina’s room, testing it by trying to fax their own phone number. Adina is four. Her father is frustrated trying to build a swing, and when Adina asks him if it’s ready, he pushes her away. Adina falls down concrete steps and is activated.

That night, Adina wakes in what appears to be a classroom.