RIGHT BESIDE YOU

A queer teenager toggles between eras in this time-fluid love story.

Eighteen-year-old Eddie is new to New York City. He’s there tending to Cookie, his 99-year-old great-aunt who lives in Greenwich Village. Her home is an homage to the past: Photos from her youth adorn the walls, as well as portraits of glamorous movie stars, like Bette Davis and Tallulah Bankhead. Eddie’s responsibilities include taking photos with Cookie’s vintage Polaroid camera of her favorite haunts, picking up opera cakes and alstroemerias, and having a glass of sherry with Cookie at precisely 4:00 p.m. All of this is manageable. What’s not manageable is Eddie’s anxiety. As he explores the city, he meets Theo, the bakery apprentice who makes said opera cakes. But Eddie is unable to move forward with his feelings of attraction. He also meets Francis, a boy from the 1920s. As Eddie slips between then and now, he’s able to fully be himself with Francis; their love story is sweet, hot, and revelatory. But is it real? Is Eddie’s seeming ability to travel through time actually something else? This story is a love letter to New York, an exploration of identity, and the passing down of a legacy of queer stories from one generation to another. Eddie’s visions are left open for readers’ interpretation, but his search for where he belongs is very clear, resplendent in how vividly Shaw conveys it. Most characters are cued white.

Deeply moving and thoroughly engrossing.