Right Beside You

Gr 9 Up–There has always been something magical about New York City to Eddie, and when his great aunt Cookie requests his live-in assistance after a hospital stay, he agrees without reservation. Once Eddie arrives, the eccentric Cookie begins asking him to run errands with one unusual component: he is to use an old-fashioned camera to capture the personality of the location of each errand. Acquiescing to the housebound Cookie’s request, Eddie soon finds the camera plunging him into the history of New York City—and an exploration of his own queer identity. Above all else, Shaw has crafted a love letter to queer New York in episodic vignettes presented almost in slideshow form; Eddie’s forays into the past bring to light snippets of queer history that have largely been buried in the tragedy of the AIDS epidemic. The writing itself is dreamlike and creates the picture of a New York that exists in a uniquely liminal space where it only makes sense for a camera to drop Eddie seemingly randomly into everyday moments in history. While this is not for the impatient reader, as the plot unfolds slowly and without notable twists, the book is ultimately rewarding.