The inspiration behind a nonbinary Easthampton author’s first book — a young adult contemporary fantasy with supernatural elements — didn’t come from a dream or a myth, but from a much more intimate source: the rhythmic thrum of their own pulse.
M.J. Beasi’s debut novel, “I Was a Teenage Death God,” was released on Tuesday, March 3 with a launch party at Easthampton Public Library, in collaboration with and featuring book sales by High Five Books.
The young adult novel is about Charlie Ford, a nonbinary 17-year-old who steals seconds from someone’s life just by touching them. Charlie has a crush on their longtime best friend, Ravi Jaiswal, but they refuse to ever touch him — no matter how much the mean, pushy ghost Lou, who hangs around Charlie, tries to change that.
Beasi said that this book was inspired by “little seeds of weird-childhood me.” In fact, when Beasi was a child, they had a “Lou” of their own: an “imaginary frenemy” ghost girl whom they were sure was evil, even though she never did anything to cause them harm. This “Lou” would visit Beasi’s room at night, heralded by phantom footsteps that mimicked the sound of someone treading on dry leaves.
In retrospect, Beasi said, that noise was almost certainly the sound of their own pulse in their ear, but the idea of making Lou into a fictional character was the jumping-off point for this book: “Everything else kind of formed around that,” Beasi said.
In retrospect, Beasi realizes that the ghostly “footsteps” were almost certainly the rhythmic thrum of their own pulse. Yet, that childhood trick of the ear became the creative catalyst for the novel.
“Everything else kind of formed around that,” Beasi said.
Beyond the supernatural, Beasi wanted to write a book that could serve as a sort of “nonbinary manifesto” and had actually written one prior to writing “I Was a Teenage Death God.” However, they had no luck getting it published. To Beasi, this book became a de facto nonbinary manifesto as Charlie’s ability doubles as a metaphor for isolation and difference.
“The real reason for choosing this ability was wanting to have something that would make a person feel like they had to stand on the outside of society,” Beasi said. “Charlie can’t touch anybody without hurting them, and because of that, they just never feel like they can fully be a part of anything.”
Equally important to Beasi was that Charlie’s power remained permanent. Just as many queer youth must reckon with an identity they cannot change, Charlie is forced to own a supernatural ability that refuses to be cast aside.
“It’s really about feeling like you’re not a person or you shouldn’t be a person and learning that you can be and learning to own that,” Beasi said.
Beasi wrote this book in part to give back to their teenage students for helping them figure out their nonbinary identity. They’d struggled with feeling out of place with their birth gender for years, starting with an incident in which they played one of Tevye’s younger daughters in a middle school production of “Fiddler on the Roof.” During the run, an adult pulled them aside and said they needed to start wearing a bra.
“The day before that was the last day that I felt comfortable at all in my own body — that I felt like I knew who I was at all. And everything was mysterious from there,” Beasi said.
Their students, however, gave them the vocabulary and the confidence to understand themself in a new way.
“They were so, so comfortable with themselves and so proud to be themselves — or even if they were scared, they knew who they were, and they wanted to be who they were,” Beasi said.
Beasi also pointed out that it’s become common for queer adults to be accused of turning young people trans. With them, though, it was exactly the opposite.
“The kids transed me!” Beasi said with a laugh. “The kids transed me, and they did a great job, too. I saw myself there. I was like, ‘Oh, wait — aah, now everything makes sense; my whole life makes sense!’”
Beasi, who has a background in musical theater and classical voice, is the founder of a local opera workshop for teenagers called Act Too Studio Teen Opera Workshop. In the past, they have shared the stage with actors Faye Dunaway, Kristin Chenoweth, David Alan Grier and Jane Krakowski.
While Beasi ultimately left the theater world, the skills they honed there didn’t go to waste. They said they were able to transpose the rhythm of the stage onto the page, specifically through characterization, flow of dialogue and “the musicality and expressiveness of the voice.” Beasi hasn’t abandoned performing entirely. Most days, they take the virtual stage for more than 4,000 followers on Twitch, though their modern “costume” is a bit unconventional: they livestream gameplay through a digital cat avatar.
“With music or art or anything at all, all storytelling is about [is] the way that we as a species share our real hearts, our deepest truths. That’s where we share our inner lives and see where they overlap and see where they are different and can learn to understand each other better,” Beasi said. “I don’t think that what I think are my strengths as a writer now would exist if I hadn’t done all those things first.”
Beasi is making use of those skills as they write the sequel to “I Was a Teenage Death God,” the second in a duology, which is slated to be released next April. Until then, they’re getting ready for their first press events and contending with the feeling of launching their novel.
“It’s one of those things where it’s a dream come true, but it also feels like the most terrifying thing that could ever happen, because you just don’t know what’s going to happen with it. Will people buy it? Will people like it? Getting your work out in the world feels great, and then also, it’s really scary,” they said.
In any case, Beasi hopes readers take away the message in the dedication: “For every young person questioning their existence in a world determined to erase them. You’re here, you’re real, and you’re spectacular.”
“I Was a Teenage Death God” is available at High Five Books in Florence, The Odyssey Bookshop in South Hadley, Booklink Booksellers in Northampton and online with major book retailers, including Barnes & Noble and Amazon.
For more information about M.J. Beasi, visit mjbeasi.com.
