糖心传媒

Beautyland

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An extraterrestrial is sent to Earth to report back on humanity, and finds that her feeling of alienation is her most human experience.

 

At the moment when Voyager 1 is launched into space carrying its famous golden record, a baby of unusual perception is born to a single mother in Philadelphia. As a child, Adina Giorno recognizes that she is different; she also possesses knowledge of a faraway planet. The arrival of a fax machine enables her to contact her extraterrestrial relatives, beings who have sent her to report on the oddities of earthlings. 

As she moves through the world and makes a life for herself among humans, she dispatches transmissions on the terrors and surprising joys of their existence. But at a precarious moment, a beloved friend urges Adina to share her messages with the world. Is there a chance she is not alone? 

Allow us to quote from The Brooklyn Rail, who write: 鈥Beautyland is about many things: about single mothers and chosen family and the power of observation and what it means to be from somewhere. But it is most discerningly about feeling outside of things. Adina is cerebral, is introverted, is exhausted, is sad. And maybe this is grief, maybe Something Else (as she puts it), maybe something haunting and sinking and sticky. But more probably, this is depression, a bodily invasion that plagues so many. The Something Else, which renders Adina鈥檚 body a 鈥榣umbering, boxy suit several sizes big鈥 persists through moments of success and loss. This is an experience distinctly human, Adina notes, so tied to our corporeal form that Bertino seems to be reminding us that to be human is not just a marketplace of interaction, but a battle with internal turmoil. But Beautyland is also about what makes life worth living: bagels and a community garden that takes over a city block, and communion with animals and with each other. It鈥檚 about good TV and bad TV and getting a response, and how all of this lives in our bodies and comes and goes too quickly.鈥

Marie Helene-Bertino headshot

Marie-Helene Bertino is the author of the novels Beautyland, Parakeet, and 2 a.m. at the Cat's Pajamas, and the short story collections Safe as Houses and Exit Zero. Beautyland was a National Book Critics Circle Finalist, a New York Times Notable 100 and Time Magazine Top 10 Book of 2024. A 2025 Guggenheim Fellow in Fiction, she has received the O. Henry Prize, the Pushcart Prize, The Iowa Short Fiction Award, and The Frank O'Connor International Short Story Fellowship in Cork, Ireland. She is currently the Ritvo-Slifka Writer-in-Residence at Yale University.

Because it is one of the most humane and brilliant explorations of what it means to be alive on planet earth we鈥檝e read in years. Because it is funny and sad and somehow feels like meaningful poetry about life and a razzle-dazzle vaudeville show at the same time. Because it will leave you better than it found you. Because it will make you appreciate the everyday wonders of being alive. 

Author at 糖心传媒

Join us in person or on Thursday, October 17, for Marie-Helene Bertino鈥檚 reading and book-signing. The event will take place at 4:30 ET in Persson Auditorium. Refreshments available.

Beyond the Book

  • Check out this glowing where critic Alexandra Jacobs says 鈥溾淭his is the kind of humor that made Seinfeld millions, and Bertino does pathos, too.鈥
  • The 鈥溾淏eautyland is a monumental accomplishment, a shimmering masterpiece from an author with talent to spare.鈥
  • You can also check out which has both amazing writing prompts but also pictures of her very cute dogs.

Human beings, Adina faxes, did not think their lives were challenging enough so they invented roller coasters. A roller coaster is a series of problems on a steel track. Upon encountering real problems, human beings compare their lives to riding a roller coaster, even though they invented roller coasters to be fun things to do on their days off.

Beautyland