{"id":136802,"date":"2019-06-03T09:00:21","date_gmt":"2019-06-03T13:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=136802"},"modified":"2023-09-19T11:57:07","modified_gmt":"2023-09-19T15:57:07","slug":"ya-of-yore-annie-on-my-mind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/06\/03\/ya-of-yore-annie-on-my-mind\/","title":{"rendered":"YA of Yore: Annie on My Mind"},"content":{"rendered":"

In her monthly column,\u00a0YA of Yore<\/a>, Frankie Thomas takes a second look at the books that defined a generation.<\/em><\/p>\n


\n<\/em>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the mystery of Annie on My Mind<\/em>, the 1982 young adult novel by Nancy Garden: I\u2019ve never met a straight person who\u2019s read it. As far as I can tell, only queer women have read it\u2014and yet I\u2019ve never met one who sought it out on purpose. It comes to us only by accident.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m generalizing, I know. But test it out for yourself. Ask your favorite lesbian how she first encountered Annie on My Mind<\/em>, and you may well hear something like this Amazon review<\/a> from the year 2001: \u201cSomeone gave me this book when I was 17 and wondering who the heck I was. I read it in one sitting, flipped it over and read it again.\u201d Or this one<\/a>, from 2009: \u201cI was walking down a [library] aisle and just had this funny feeling to pull out this book. Call it crazy, but it felt like the book that I\u2019ve never seen before wanted me to read it.\u201d As if by enchantment, the novel finds its way, often in disguise, to those who don\u2019t know they need it.<\/p>\n

It found its way to me in the summer of 2000, when I was thirteen, via the Union Square branch of Barnes & Noble. Back then YA fiction took up just one small shelf, consisting mostly of Francesca Lia Block<\/a> and the hoax diaries of Beatrice Sparks<\/a>, so I was quick to notice a book I\u2019d never seen before. The tagline intrigued me: \u201cLiza never knew falling in love could be so wonderful \u2026 or so confusing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why did I assume that Liza was in love with a boy, when the book gave no such indication? Its front cover depicted two girls holding hands, their eyes closed, their foreheads tenderly touching. Its back cover, which was a soft-butch shade of salmon pink, featured a short excerpt in which Liza\u2019s mother asked, \u201cHave you and Annie done more than the usual experimenting?\u201d But these things have a way of hiding in plain sight from anyone not actively looking for them. We see what we expect to see. Annie was Liza\u2019s best friend, I thought; the two of them were experimenting with boys. What else could they be doing?<\/p>\n

The other possibility, of course, is that I did know. On some level, perhaps, I knew right away.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Case in point: if you don\u2019t know what\u2019s coming, the first seventy pages or so of Annie on My Mind<\/em> are borderline unreadable. Their prose is Nancy Drew-ish (\u201cLiza closed her eyes, absently running her hand through her short, already tousled brownish hair. Her shoulders were hunched tensely in a way that made her look, even when she stood up, shorter than the 5\u20193\u201d she really was\u201d). The narration makes confusing shifts between third person, first person, and epistolary. Worst of all, forty-three of those seventy pages\u2014sixty percent of them!\u2014are consumed with a mind-numbingly minor scandal at Liza\u2019s high school involving amateur ear-piercing. If, for some reason, you want to hear your favorite lesbian groan with displeasure, remind her of this subplot.<\/p>\n

The preliminary dullness feels perversely deliberate: the first third of the book is boring not because prep-school ear-piercing scandals are inherently boring (I would eagerly read an entire novel on the subject), but because it\u2019s boring to Liza<\/em>, who isn\u2019t even directly connected to it. \u201cIt just seems ridiculous,\u201d says one character, \u201cto make a fuss about anything so silly,\u201d and Liza agrees\u2014yet the subplot keeps going and going, as if determined to lose all but the most committed readers. It reminds me of that viral tweet<\/a> whose joke escaped me the first few times I saw it because it worked too well: \u201cLadies, what\u2019s your makeup routine? I\u2019m looking for a new foundation, preferably liquid but still matte and now that the men have stopped reading we riot at midnight.\u201d<\/p>\n

The midnight riot, in this case, is an Italian American public school girl named Annie. We first meet her, early in the novel, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Liza is drawn to \u201ca wonderful voice,\u201d like a sailor to a siren, in the otherwise deserted American wing, where the musically gifted Annie is singing to herself. \u201cDon\u2019t stop,\u201d are Liza\u2019s first words to her, followed shortly by \u201cDo you come here often?\u201d She doesn\u2019t, so Liza gives Annie a guided tour of the museum, complete with a mock sword fight in the hall of arms and armor.<\/p>\n

Despite this adorable meet-cute, it\u2019s nearly a hundred pages before Liza even begins to examine her feelings for her new friend. Again, if you don\u2019t know what\u2019s coming, I don\u2019t know how you make it through the first third of this book. I say this even as someone who did<\/em> make it through\u2014spellbound, no less\u2014despite not knowing (not consciously, at least) what was coming. I no longer recall what I thought I was reading, where I thought it was going, why I endured the ear-piercing subplot in anticipation of whatever the turning point might be. I do remember that when it finally came, my eyes initially skipped over it\u2014just as they skipped over \u201cwe riot at midnight\u201d in that Twitter joke\u2014because it, too, is hidden in plain sight, buried in the past progressive at the end of a long sentence:<\/p>\n

Annie shivered.<\/p>\n

Without thinking, I put my arm across her shoulders to warm her, and then before either of us knew what was happening, our arms were around each other and Annie\u2019s soft and gentle mouth was kissing mine.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

*<\/p>\n

It\u2019s true that I\u2019ve never met a straight person who\u2019s read this book\u2014but I cannot discount the possibility that the book turns you gay. If any book could, it\u2019s this one. There\u2019s something Edenic about it, with Liza and Annie as the Adam and Eve of homosexuality, kissing \u201cwithout thinking\u201d and \u201cbefore either of us knew what was happening.\u201d Ignorant of gay culture, unacquainted (or so they believe) with any other gay people, they\u2019re innocent of all knowledge except what they know in their hearts. \u201cAnnie, I think I love you,\u201d Liza exclaims seconds after that first kiss (lesbians move fast), and in the narration she reflects, \u201cThe moment the words were out, I knew more than I\u2019d ever known anything that they were true.\u201d Naming their feelings as Adam named the animals, Liza and Annie invent love.<\/p>\n

And what a love it is! To this day I\u2019ve never read anything that rivals Annie on My Mind<\/em> for sheer romantic gratification. The middle third of this book is like one big movie montage: Liza and Annie go on chaste dates to Coney Island (in wintertime!), the Cloisters, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and<\/em> the Bronx-based New York Botanical Garden. They ride the Staten Island Ferry back and forth. They dine at a fancy Italian restaurant in the West Village, where Liza has to be \u201cconvinced\u201d to \u201ctry a wonderful pastry called cannoli<\/em>, and after that we had espresso<\/em>\u201d (italics in original)\u2014more like a wide-eyed country girl than the native New Yorker she really is. Their love renders them dazzled tourists in their own hometown; I\u2019m reminded of the movie Enchanted<\/em>, in which a fairy-tale princess is transported to modern-day New York City and, rather than being corrupted by it, makes it a sweeter, lovelier place<\/a> simply by existing in it. Even the gruff museum guard melts when Liza and Annie stage their sword fight in the Met: \u201cHis eyes didn\u2019t look angry. \u2018Darn good fight,\u2019 he grunted. \u2018Ought to do Shakespeare in the Park, you two.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

And how sure of each other they are! You never get the sense that the feelings are stronger on one side, or that either of them suffers under the strain of being so excessively adored by the other. So perfectly matched is their love, in fact, that they unknowingly buy each other the same Christmas gift: a gold ring with a gemstone (\u201cpale blue\u201d for Annie, \u201cpale green\u201d for Liza). Many of us might react to an unexpected ring exchange with anxiety or uncertainty\u2014does it imply some sort of formal permanent commitment?\u2014but not Liza and Annie:<\/p>\n

Annie flung her arms around my neck and kissed me, even though there were four kids galloping down the snowy path from Clark Street to the Promenade, showering each other with snowballs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you don\u2019t put that ring on this minute, I\u2019m going to take it back,\u201d Annie whispered in my ear \u2026 She leaned back, looking at me, her hands still on my shoulders, her eyes shining softly at me and snow falling, melting, on her nose. \u201cBuon Natale<\/em>,\u201d she whispered, \u201camore mio<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMerry Christmas, my love,\u201d I answered.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Eventually they have sex\u2014or, as they put it, become lovers\u2014in a scene written in the prose equivalent of soft focus. I\u2019m sure I\u2019m not the only reader who studied the passage intently in the hope of understanding what, exactly, two girls do<\/em> together:<\/p>\n

I remember so much about that first time with Annie that I am numb with it, and breathless. I can feel Annie\u2019s hands touching me again, gently, as if she were afraid I might break; I can feel her softness under my hands\u2014I look down at my hands now and see them slightly curved, feel them become both strong and gentle as I felt them become for the first time then.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Nor, I imagine, am I the only reader who spent a lot of time experimentally curving her hands into the air, wondering what that part was for.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

But I\u2019m generalizing again. What I really mean to say, I suppose, is that the book turned me<\/em> gay. If I wasn\u2019t fully conscious of this on my first reading, or my second, or my third, or my ninth\u2014well, at some point I had to admit to myself that straight girls probably don\u2019t read Annie on My Mind<\/em> ten times in a row. Throughout my eighth-grade year, to help me process their ongoing divorce, my parents were sending me weekly to a child psychologist on the Upper West Side; she was the first person I told. \u201cI think,\u201d I said, \u201cI\u2019m a lesbian.\u201d<\/p>\n

She frowned. \u201cYou\u2019re too young to know that,\u201d she replied. \u201cReally, you\u2019re too young even to be thinking about it. Keep it to yourself for now, all right? There\u2019s no need to share this with anyone else.\u201d<\/p>\n

I felt foolish for having made such a major claim without proof. I decided not to tell anyone else until I found an Annie of my own\u2014or, preferably, she found me. When that didn\u2019t happen in the eighth grade, I waited for high school. When it didn\u2019t happen in high school, I waited for college. And when it didn\u2019t happen in college \u2026<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the heartbreaking paradox of Annie on My Mind<\/em>: it awakens you to a very specific desire even as it forecloses you from it. If you\u2019ve read about Liza and Annie, you can never have precisely what they have. You know too much. You can\u2019t sit on a park bench with your pretty friend and then, innocently, without thinking, before either of you know what\u2019s happening, just happen to find yourselves kissing each other\u2014not when you have Liza and Annie on your mind. Their Eden is your fall.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Conflict arises in the final third of the novel when Liza and Annie are outed against their will. Scandal ensues at Liza\u2019s school, where lesbianism is an infraction nearly on the level of unlicensed ear-piercing. Liza is made to feel ashamed of her sexuality, and for several months she refuses to speak to Annie.<\/p>\n

This is by far the least erotic section of the novel, so I tended to skim it in my rereads. It was only while drafting this essay that I was struck by a scene in which Liza\u2019s chemistry lab partner, \u201ca very intense, brilliant girl named Zelda, who was going to be a doctor and who hardly ever smiled,\u201d approaches her before class. Zelda says \u201cin an odd, sort of choked voice, \u2018If you\u2019d like to talk about it any time, Liza, I\u2019ll be glad to listen.\u201d Liza tries to dodge the offer, but Zelda persists:<\/p>\n

\u201cLiza, may I ask you something?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSure,\u201d I said reluctantly.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell\u2014I think you know me well enough to know this isn\u2019t out of any prurient interest or anything, right?\u201d<\/p>\n

The icicles in my stomach got colder; I shrugged, feeling trapped.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell,\u201d Zelda began, \u201csince I\u2019m going to be a doctor and all \u2026 I just wondered,\u201d she said smoothly, \u201cif you could tell me, from a scientific standpoint, of course, just what it is that two girls do<\/em> in bed \u2026\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The scene breaks there. Zelda has never heretofore appeared in the novel, and she\u2019s never mentioned again; I had no memory of her character until this most recent reread. We\u2019re meant to understand her as a dirty-minded homophobe, sharing with Liza\u2019s religion teacher an inappropriate obsession with lesbian sex:<\/p>\n

Ms. Baxter gave this incredibly lurid account of what she\u2019d seen. It was awful. It made us sound like monsters, not like two people in love \u2026 It was as if everyone were assuming that love had nothing to do with any of this, that it was just \u201can indulgence of carnal appetites\u201d\u2014I think Ms. Baxter actually used those words \u2026 I wanted to stand up and shout \u2026 We love each other!<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ms. Baxter is a noxious bigot, of course, and Zelda is tactless. I can\u2019t help thinking, though, that as a vindication against sexual shame, Annie on My Mind<\/em> sets the bar rather high. What if Liza and Annie weren\u2019t<\/em> in love? What if, as Liza\u2019s mother assumes, they really were just \u201cexperimenting\u201d? What if you don\u2019t have an Annie in your life but still desire, as Zelda does, to know what two girls do in bed?<\/p>\n

I did eventually figure that one out. (Pro tip: dating women turns out to be much easier if you tell them you\u2019re interested.) Of the women I\u2019ve gone out with, most were nice enough, some were deeply disagreeable, and a few became lifelong friends\u2014but none ended up being my Annie. When I finally fell in love, it was with a man; we\u2019re happily married now, so the entirety of my lesbian experience could conceivably be rounded down to \u201can indulgence of carnal appetites.\u201d<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t really think that way, or at least I try not to. But I still feel a certain ache when I think of Annie on My Mind <\/em>and the purity of its romance. Sometimes I feel less like Liza than like Zelda\u2014that unwelcome interloper in someone else\u2019s story, with not Annie but sex on her mind.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Liza ultimately reconciles with Annie (who has no hard feelings, apparently, about being ghosted for months), and the novel ends with the implication that our heroines will be together forevermore. I\u2019ve always struggled to suspend my disbelief for this happily-ever-after, so I was surprised to learn recently that it\u2019s autobiographical. The 2007 reissue of the novel includes an interview with the author in which she recounts falling in love with her best friend, Sandy, in the fifties. \u201cFrom high school on,\u201d Garden says, \u201cSandy was the most important person in the world to me and the person I wanted to be with forever \u2026 And in 2004, because we live in Massachusetts, we were able to get legally married\u2014after thirty-five years of living together.\u201d They were still married at the time of Garden\u2019s death in 2014<\/a>. Serves me right: I never imagined that the true story could be more romantic than the novel.<\/p>\n

That interview also solves another mystery, one I\u2019d never considered before: Annie on My Mind<\/em> was published in 1982, so what was it doing at Barnes & Noble in the year 2000? At the time I didn\u2019t question what felt like fate, but it turns out the novel wasn\u2019t just hiding in plain sight for eighteen years. In 1993 it made national news when a Kansas City school district not only banned it from libraries, but held an actual public book burning<\/a> to destroy all donated copies. It wasn\u2019t until 1999 that the book was returned to the libraries on the order of a federal judge.<\/p>\n

I had no idea, when I first picked up that salmon-pink paperback, that I was touching such an inflammatory object. But I don\u2019t think I\u2019d have been shocked to learn that some adults feared it enough to burn it. That fear, that fire, was in the air in the summer of 2000\u2014acrid enough that an eighth grader could sense it. It\u2019s still in the air today. Fortunately, though, Garden\u2019s Eden is always open to visitors: even after all these decades, Annie on My Mind<\/em> has never gone out of print<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Annie on My Mind<\/em> begins with a dedication: \u201cFor all of us.\u201d I don\u2019t know if Garden meant to include me in that category, but I believe her book really is for all of us\u2014the lovestruck Lizas, the curious Zeldas, even the ones who haven\u2019t thought about it yet. This Pride Month, I toast you all. Here\u2019s to finding, if not your Annie, then at least a good book. Or, better yet, to the book finding you.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Read earlier installments of\u00a0<\/em>YA of Yore\u00a0here.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

James Frankie Thomas is the author of \u201cThe Showrunner,\u201d which received special mention in the <\/em>2013 Pushcart Prize Anthology. His writing has also appeared in <\/em>The Toast,<\/em>\u00a0The Hairpin, and\u00a0<\/em>Vol. 1 Brooklyn. He holds an M.F.A. in fiction from the Iowa Writers\u2019 Workshop.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here\u2019s the mystery of \u201cAnnie on My Mind\u201d: I\u2019ve never met a straight person who\u2019s read it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2410,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42956],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-136802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ya-of-yore"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nYA of Yore: Annie on My Mind by James Frankie Thomas<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"June 3, 2019 \u2013 Here\u2019s the mystery of \u201cAnnie on My Mind\u201d: I\u2019ve never met a straight person who\u2019s read it.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/06\/03\/ya-of-yore-annie-on-my-mind\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" 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