Definitely a must read! I read no idea what this book was about – well that’s not true, I knew the book was set in New York 1910s, I knew there was possibly going to be a merman/mermaid (based on the cover 🤣) and knew that this book was part of the LGBTQ2S+ family!
Fcking loved this book. It did take me a while to get through the first little bit, I honestly wasn’t sure if I was going to finish as the writing style was one that was new to me but holy Jesus read this book. Oh and one of the best parts in the book is the pop surprise Illustrations by Venessa! I also love that Venessa had the character be bilingual, it’s a “trope” a really love, probably cause I’m jealous they can speak two languages 🙊
We meet Benigno or as the Americans call him Benny, an orphan blacksmith in 1910s New York. It doesn’t seem to matter what decade we are in, an immigrant of color always seems to be treated differently. Even the white immigrants treat him differently (how the hell does that work?), but an incident at work Benigno finds himself in the mix of sideshow performers. Who would have thought the tank Benigno built would hold a beautiful, mythical creature – a merman.
But if I had to guess, the merman wasn’t leering at me because I’d killed the mermaid or helped kidnap him. In the same way I resented everyone who’d ever stood by while Farty Walsh tortured me at the furnaces, el triton leered at me because I’d watched.
And I’d done nothing to stop it
Guilty that he was part of stealing the merman from the East River, Benigno tries his best to befriend the merman. Rio is untrusting, aggressive and rightly so at first, but Benigno doesn’t let that stop him from trying to make Rio’s life more comfortable in the tank. An unforeseen friendship starts to bloom between the two, that I can’t get over. But this friendship had a rough start
Merciful Neptune. What would you think of me, Mother?
“They have souls,” you had said to me once the smoke had cleared from the estuary. “You saw how they grieve.”
The other man, vested like an eel with eyes like a trench-dweller-whose thunderous blast took you away; I am loath to believe he has ever grieved.
But the one I harmed today does not have such eyes. When you died, he looked at me, and in his gaze was my own horror reflected.
Perhaps that is why I leapt for his throat.
Even Rio seemed to be having a hard time keeping away from the Boy Named Kind. There was a pull between the two, and I think Rio was the first to act on his feelings for Benigno.
He tiled his head thoughtfully and, in English, said, “So, your name suits you too, Boy Named Kind.”
And like a crank on a phonograph something in his word whirred my heart into motion the way it hadn’t since I last sat under a warm Caribbean sun next to Ramon. I didn’t think I’d warned it. “I forgive you.” he announced, reclining on the water. “Sing another bolsillo, if you know one.”
“Bolero.”
“Yes. That”
I stayed for another song. And another after that.
But Benigno knew what it was like to have feelings for someone who didn’t return them. I think he was scared to act again on his feelings with the thought in the back of his mind, what if it is like last time? Hiding a part of yourself from the world is a terrible feeling. Not being loved for who you were born to be.
“I have heard their strange music, and found peace in its noise,” you once told me. “Many humans are lost. But not all.”
My cell is haunted by a man who would destroy me by my ears-and guarded by another who would relieve me by them. Our elders were not wrong. But you were also right
Pain looks the same in merpeople as it does humans.
This one hurts to read. I couldn’t imagine being captured and at the same time watching your mother get murdered. Now trapped in a tank with no way out, forced to tricks, fed terrible food, tortured to some degree with a blasted whistle (I wonder if merpeople have way better hearing than regular people) and is involuntarily put into the sideshow as the new attraction.
You only swallow ashes if you know what it’s like to go hungry
We get an inside look into the lives of the sideshow performers, of what they possibly have also struggled through. Eating Vera’s very burnt meal because they seem to also know what it is like to go hungry.
“To Ekaterina, I was devoted husband,” he said “Not giant”
I felt so bad for Igor. Moving away across the world to hopefully make a better life for him and his wife Ekaterina. He was hoping to make enough money to get a new life for them, but before he could send for Ekaterina to come to the US she unfortunately died. It seems Igor took it personally as he wasn’t there for her when she got sick. And now he is in a sideshow, making money because of people who want to gawk at his height. But to Ekaterina he was just her Igor not this freakishly tall man.
“And it’s because, after everything. I still wish it wasn’t true. Everything else in my life is so damn hard already, couldn’t God give me one less complication?”
Man do I feel this. Maybe not to the same extent, but I have definitely wished that I didn’t have complications or wish I wasn’t here to be able to finally get rid of the part of me I felt was holding myself back. There are so many expectations the world and society has put on a man or woman. But loving someone who doesn’t fit into the world’s expectations is absolutely nuts, and shouldn’t be something anyone else has a say in.
“I mean, you don’t want me to pick a name for you.” We blinked at each other. “Wait, you want me to name you?”
He closed his eyes like I was riding the farthest edges of his patience. “Of you must call by a name, then you will choose it,” he said. “To give you my name is to give you the last of myself, and humanity has taken enough from me. My name is my own. You may not have it.”
I found I couldn’t argue. The name I’d give everyone I had met in America wasn’t my real name either, but rather a loaned-out version.
“How ‘bout Rio?”
“Rio.’ He mimicked my rolled R like a native boricua. “Why that name?”
A river can be both devastating and beautiful. I shrugged. “It suits you.”
He tipped his head to the side, seeming to carefully assess my selection. “All right, Boy Named Kind,” he murmured, “You may call me Rio”
I think this was my first clue about Bengino and his thoughts on love. Who he found attractive – even if it was with a merman- that didn’t seem to stop him from trying to be kind to the creature. Also is it just just me, it probably is but I love when other people give me a nickname. Something special I find
“Benny,” he said in quiet disbelief. “He ain’t my brother.”
My eyes squinted over my O-shaped mouth. “What do you mean he ain’t-”
And then, as if Poseidon’s trident had fallen out of the wall to thump me over the head, I understood him perfectly
This probably made Bengino feel a little less alone in the world. Knowing there were others like him. But the story between Eli and Emmett broke my heart. They also have to hide who they are in front of the public as brothers but with the sideshow performers-their family- they are more than welcomed to be their true selves.
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