Blackouts

Juan researches Jan and Zhenya by their birth names: Helen Reitman and Eleanor Byrnes, respectively. He finds references to Jan in newspaper microfiche rolls and studies Zhenya through her children’s books—all of which give him perspective on himself.

A page from a children’s book describes and depicts a squirrel named Sarah and a chipmunk named Carolyn wrestling angrily.

Jan and Zhenya met in 1927, the year Juan was born, and informally married under their birth names before taking on new names. The couple travel and write books, forming a family with their charge Juan. They eventually return to New York with Juan, assigning him their surname.

Nene asks Juan if “gay” always carried the connotation of sexuality. Juan confirms it did “to those who knew” (188), but the definition meaning “happy” was still popular. He was sent to live with an aunt and uncle in Spanish Harlem, having been vaguely promised that his family would reunite, and that he was to focus on school in the meantime. He and Nene discuss different iterations of Zhenya’s drawing of a young boy, done over decades.

An illustration of a goat from a children’s book is accompanied by a poem about a male goat who wears “four little black high heels” (190).