Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino Summary, Characters and Themes

Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino is a beautifully layered novel that blends the cosmic with the everyday, telling the story of Adina Giorno, a woman who feels alienated from Earth yet finds moments of wonder in its peculiarities. 

Born at the moment of Voyager 1’s launch, Adina believes she is a probe sent by a distant civilization to observe human life. As she navigates love, friendship, grief, and identity, her transmissions to her extraterrestrial superiors reveal humanity’s fragility and resilience. Bertino’s novel is a tender meditation on belonging, loneliness, and the universal search for connection in a vast, indifferent cosmos.

Summary

Adina Giorno is born in Northeast Philadelphia in 1977, coinciding with the launch of the Voyager 1 space probe. 

From birth, she feels a sense of alienation from the world around her. Unbeknownst to her, she is a probe sent by an extraterrestrial civilization to observe Earth and report her findings. 

Her early life is shaped by hardship — her father abandons the family after an incident where he pushes her down a flight of stairs. Raised by her hardworking single mother, Adina shows signs of unusual perception from a young age. 

At four, after the accident with her father, Adina is “activated” and begins receiving transmissions from her alien superiors, who appear as a shimmering, collective entity in her night visions. Her mother salvages a fax machine from the trash, which Adina uses to send reports back to her distant world.

Growing up, Adina finds comfort in the small wonders of Earth, from visiting her mother’s favorite store, Beautyland, to observing fish at an aquarium. 

She befriends Toni, a fellow Italian American girl, and the two share a bond over their struggles to fit in. Adina becomes fascinated by the astronomer Carl Sagan and his ideas about intelligent life in the universe, which affirm her belief in her alien origins.

As Adina navigates adolescence, she longs for acceptance. She experiences a fleeting sense of belonging when she is briefly invited into a popular group of girls, only to be ousted when she refuses to kiss a boy. 

These rejections deepen her feelings of loneliness. Despite her isolation, Adina excels academically and participates in theater, but financial constraints prevent her from pursuing acting further. 

Instead, she works at a diner while taking college classes.

Adina continues to send transmissions about human life to her alien superiors. As she grows older, she becomes increasingly aware of human fragility and the complexities of relationships. 

After moving to New York City, she struggles to adapt to the bustling environment but gradually settles into her new life. She reconnects with Toni, who learns about Adina’s alien transmissions and encourages her to compile them into a book.

The book’s publication brings Adina brief fame, but it does little to alleviate her feelings of disconnection. She adopts a dog and begins a relationship with a musician named Miguel, who initially claims he is also an alien. 

Adina later realizes he uses the term metaphorically, reflecting a shared sense of being out of place. Adina’s alien superiors, who are dying on their home planet, ask her to determine whether Earth is inhabitable for them. 

However, as time passes, their communications cease, leaving Adina feeling abandoned.

Grief overwhelms Adina after a series of personal losses. Miguel leaves her, her dog dies, and Toni succumbs to breast cancer. 

After Toni’s death, Adina feels untethered, both from her hometown of Philadelphia and from her life in New York. When the space object Oumuamua is identified outside the solar system, Adina believes it is a ship sent for her people. Her former teacher, the entity Solomon, visits one last time and asks her to summarize Earth in one word before deactivating. 

Adina reflects on the fleeting beauty of life—her mother’s love, her friendships, and her dog. Seeking peace, she boards the Staten Island ferry, imagining reuniting with her alien people and finally finding her place in the universe.

Characters

Adina Giorno

Adina Giorno is the protagonist of Beautyland and the central character through whom the story unfolds. Born in 1977 in Northeast Philadelphia, she is presented as someone who is not quite of this world.

From an early age, Adina realizes that she is different, possessing an extraordinary perception and knowledge about an alien civilization. Despite her small, fragile physical appearance at birth, Adina is marked by her unusual consciousness of the universe around her.

As she grows, her connection to extraterrestrial beings becomes more apparent, as she communicates with them through a fax machine—an old but significant medium that links her to her home planet. This alien perspective shapes her worldview, and she feels disconnected from Earth, viewing her role as an observer of human life rather than a participant.

Throughout her life, Adina struggles with loneliness and the feeling of being an outsider. While she has relationships with people, such as her mother, friends, and love interests, she always feels like she doesn’t truly belong.

However, despite her isolation, Adina continues to grow emotionally, both as a person and as someone who reflects on her place in the universe. Her fascination with the stars, particularly with Carl Sagan’s theories about extraterrestrial life, and her bond with Toni, a close friend who becomes an essential part of her life, provide her with moments of comfort in her otherwise tumultuous existence.

In the end, Adina’s journey becomes one of self-realization, where she comes to terms with her unique existence and contemplates her connection to both Earth and the cosmos.

Adina’s Mother

Adina’s mother plays a pivotal role in shaping her early life. A single mother who works hard to support her family, she provides a stable foundation for Adina, despite the many challenges they face.

Her job at a care facility for individuals with intellectual disabilities gives the family financial support, but it also exposes them to a world of struggles, highlighting the resilience and sacrifice required for survival. Though her relationship with Adina’s father is tumultuous and ultimately results in separation, her mother remains steadfast in her commitment to her daughter, even if she doesn’t fully understand Adina’s otherworldly inclinations.

Her character is primarily seen through her actions and support of Adina, from rescuing the fax machine to maintaining a sense of normalcy in their household. She grows her own garden, a symbol of her efforts to create beauty and stability in an otherwise difficult life.

Even though Adina’s mother doesn’t have the same cosmic concerns that her daughter does, she represents a grounding force in Adina’s life, offering love and stability even as Adina wrestles with her identity and otherworldly mission. The mother-daughter dynamic is one of the more tender aspects of the novel, underscoring the contrast between Adina’s extraordinary existence and her mother’s ordinary but vital role.

Toni

Toni is Adina’s close friend, someone who offers her companionship and understanding amid the confusion of Adina’s life. She is a constant presence in Adina’s story, serving as a grounding influence and a source of comfort.

Toni and Adina share a bond over their similar Italian-American backgrounds, though their lives are quite different. Toni’s presence in Adina’s life marks some of the most emotionally fulfilling moments for Adina, such as their time spent together at the beach and their shared experiences during high school.

Unlike Adina, Toni is more deeply rooted in the world of human relationships, and she provides Adina with a sense of belonging. When Toni is diagnosed with breast cancer and eventually dies, it marks one of the most devastating moments in Adina’s life.

Toni’s death is a defining point in Adina’s emotional journey, forcing her to confront her own sense of isolation and loss. Despite the deep love they share, Toni’s death symbolizes the inevitability of human frailty, something Adina, with her alien origins, has difficulty coming to terms with.

Miguel

Miguel is a significant figure in Adina’s later life, representing the romantic connection that Adina seeks but struggles to fully understand. When Adina meets Miguel, he tells her that he, too, feels like an alien—a metaphor for his own sense of not fitting in with the world around him.

This revelation resonates with Adina, as it parallels her own feelings of alienation. Their relationship, though brief, is one of emotional significance, and Miguel’s departure from her life is a painful moment.

His metaphorical alienness offers a temporary sense of connection for Adina, but it ultimately proves insufficient as a means of grounding her. Miguel’s eventual breakup with Adina is part of the broader pattern of loss that Adina faces throughout her life.

It echoes her continual struggle to find a place where she feels at home. Even though he is not literally an alien, Miguel’s portrayal of himself as one highlights the thematic undercurrent of alienation and the search for belonging that runs throughout the novel.

Mrs. Leafhalter

Mrs. Leafhalter is a secondary but pivotal character in Adina’s life. She is a neighbor who offers Adina a summer of respite, where they spend time together, and Mrs. Leafhalter acts as a surrogate mother figure during Adina’s childhood.

Mrs. Leafhalter is a symbol of the unconventional relationships that Adina forms in her quest for connection. After Mrs. Leafhalter’s death, she leaves Adina her television, a seemingly trivial object that serves as a conduit for Adina’s discovery of Pando, a colony of aspen trees in Utah.

Pando, with its interconnected roots and collective nature, resonates with Adina’s understanding of her alien people, reinforcing the themes of connection, community, and alienation. Mrs. Leafhalter’s legacy continues to shape Adina’s worldview even after her death.

The television, which becomes a tool for Adina’s emotional exploration, also marks the beginning of Adina’s realization that her alien identity might be part of a broader cosmic fate. Her role in the novel is a quiet but important one, as she represents the fleeting but meaningful relationships that Adina experiences in her life.

Themes

The Alienation of the Human Experience and the Struggle for Belonging

One of the central themes in Beautyland is the profound sense of alienation that pervades Adina’s life, despite her deep desire to connect with others. Adina’s entire existence is marked by a feeling of being an outsider, not just because of her perceived extraterrestrial origins, but also because of her inability to understand the seemingly illogical and complicated behaviors of humans.

Growing up with a sense of difference, especially with her “alien” perception of Earth, Adina constantly grapples with the notion of belonging. Her identity is defined by her perceived isolation, first from her family, then from her peers, and later, even from her closest friends.

The story suggests that, even in the context of a world full of people, it is often the case that we are still strangers to one another, unable to fully comprehend the experiences or feelings of others. Adina’s relentless search for connection, both on a human and cosmic level, portrays the often overwhelming nature of seeking a sense of purpose or place in a world that can feel both vast and small.

The Interplay Between Memory, Loss, and Grief as a Form of Exile

Adina’s journey can also be viewed through the lens of grief and the emotional exile that comes with profound loss. As she experiences the death of her close friend Toni, the end of her relationship with Miguel, and the eventual disconnect from her alien superiors, Adina’s sense of displacement deepens.

Grief here is not only about mourning the people or things that are lost but also about a kind of existential loss—the loss of connection to what is familiar, to the lives of others, and to the beings she once communicated with. The deaths in her life serve as poignant markers of the fact that time is finite, and despite the years spent observing human life and culture, Adina never truly feels integrated into it.

As she faces the finality of Toni’s death and the silence from her alien superiors, Adina is confronted with the idea that perhaps she has never truly belonged anywhere. The sense of loss she experiences forces her to question her role on Earth, leaving her not only bereft of the people she loved but also disconnected from her purpose in the universe.

The Complex Relationship Between the Body, Identity, and the Concept of Home

The novel introduces an intricate relationship between body and identity, particularly when examining Adina’s perception of herself as an alien being. Her small and frail body, marked by early signs of illness, mirrors her internal dissonance, amplifying the sense that she is not at home in her own skin or in the world she inhabits.

The idea that Adina’s alien origins influence her sense of self extends to her daily life, where she feels constantly at odds with human customs, emotions, and relationships. The metaphor of being an alien is explored through her physicality as well, where her corporeal form is both an anchor to Earth and a source of conflict.

Adina’s ongoing connection to the idea of “home” is examined in the sense that her body, despite being a vessel of Earthly experiences, is not something she fully identifies with. This disconnect from both body and identity plays into a larger exploration of belonging, where Adina’s alienation goes beyond the mental and emotional—it is embodied in her very existence as a human being on Earth.

The Search for Meaning Through Communication and Expression, Especially When Faced with Silence

Another significant theme in Beautyland revolves around the search for meaning and understanding through communication, particularly in Adina’s use of the fax machine to communicate with her alien superiors. Throughout the novel, Adina’s desire to communicate with her extraterrestrial family symbolizes her ongoing search for answers, validation, and a sense of purpose.

Her alienation is counterbalanced by her attempts to bridge the gap through technological and personal expression. The fax machine represents a lifeline, a tool for connection that transcends physical boundaries.

However, the silence that she eventually receives from her alien superiors after years of communication also represents the limitations of expression. The finality of this silence suggests that, no matter how hard one tries to communicate or understand, the ultimate answers to life’s biggest questions may always remain out of reach.

The theme of communication is therefore also a commentary on the fragile nature of human connection—how even with all the tools we have at our disposal, genuine understanding and emotional closeness can often feel elusive and fleeting.

The Fragility and Resilience of Existence

The novel also explores the philosophical question of what makes life on Earth significant, both on a personal and cosmic scale. Adina’s connection to her alien heritage brings into question the value of Earth’s human experiences when viewed from the perspective of a faraway civilization.

As she dispatches her transmissions to her superiors, she is forced to grapple with the nature of life on Earth, its beauty, its absurdities, and its tragedies. This theme extends to the novel’s meditation on the fragility of life—how fragile, fleeting, and yet resilient human existence can be.

Adina’s observations of human life, filled with love, loss, and the pursuit of meaning, are juxtaposed with her alien perspective, which suggests that life on Earth is but a brief moment in the grander scheme of the universe. In her quest to understand Earth, Adina also learns to appreciate the wonder of living, realizing that despite the pain, there is something extraordinary in the simple act of being.

The novel highlights that the fragility of life is what makes it meaningful, and that, even in the face of cosmic insignificance, the resilience of human life carries its own profound significance.