Aaron Hamburger
I feel as though Nirvana is Here is the story I’ve been writing or trying to write my entire life.
Like the protagonist of the book, I grew up in the segregated suburbs of Detroit, though in the 1980s, not the 1990s, and like the protagonist, I felt very much like an outsider. I remember vividly being a freshman in college in the fall of 1991, sitting on the floor of a friend’s dorm room, when another student came running in, saying, “You have to hear this song” and putting on “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana. The song felt so different from anything I’d heard before, and it felt in a way like a kind of permission to be who I was, to claim an identity I’d been running away from for so long in my life.
When I was twelve, I was sexually assaulted by another boy my age, a neighborhood bully who threatened to kill me if I told anyone what he’d done. His threat notwithstanding, I did tell my therapist, who was legally obligated to tell the police. I remember vividly sitting in the police station and being asked if I “wanted it,” which was my assailant’s defense for what he’d done. Because I said no, both to that boy and the police, I was safe. This led me to the wrongheaded conclusion that if I admitted to anyone that I was attracted to other guys, he would be found innocent and I would be found guilty, and my assailant would be set free and could come find me and exact his revenge.
All this is the background material that inspired the fictionalized version of the story of this book. It’s material that for many years, even as an adult, I felt that I had to keep hidden, that somehow others would feel repelled if they knew the truth. In my earlier fiction, I’ve written semi-autobiographical stories, but always with this key fact of my own life erased or shunted off to the side. This book is the first time I’ve attempted to grapple with this subject matter head-on, and it’s been liberating. Suddenly, I feel as though my fiction has taken on a new sense of vitality and honesty that’s liberated me to tell all kinds of stories, not just my own.
Like the protagonist of the book, I grew up in the segregated suburbs of Detroit, though in the 1980s, not the 1990s, and like the protagonist, I felt very much like an outsider. I remember vividly being a freshman in college in the fall of 1991, sitting on the floor of a friend’s dorm room, when another student came running in, saying, “You have to hear this song” and putting on “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana. The song felt so different from anything I’d heard before, and it felt in a way like a kind of permission to be who I was, to claim an identity I’d been running away from for so long in my life.
When I was twelve, I was sexually assaulted by another boy my age, a neighborhood bully who threatened to kill me if I told anyone what he’d done. His threat notwithstanding, I did tell my therapist, who was legally obligated to tell the police. I remember vividly sitting in the police station and being asked if I “wanted it,” which was my assailant’s defense for what he’d done. Because I said no, both to that boy and the police, I was safe. This led me to the wrongheaded conclusion that if I admitted to anyone that I was attracted to other guys, he would be found innocent and I would be found guilty, and my assailant would be set free and could come find me and exact his revenge.
All this is the background material that inspired the fictionalized version of the story of this book. It’s material that for many years, even as an adult, I felt that I had to keep hidden, that somehow others would feel repelled if they knew the truth. In my earlier fiction, I’ve written semi-autobiographical stories, but always with this key fact of my own life erased or shunted off to the side. This book is the first time I’ve attempted to grapple with this subject matter head-on, and it’s been liberating. Suddenly, I feel as though my fiction has taken on a new sense of vitality and honesty that’s liberated me to tell all kinds of stories, not just my own.
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