Better Nate Than Ever

“(My sexuality, by the way, is off-topic and unrelated. I am undecided. I am a freshman at the College of Sexuality and I have undecided my major, and frankly don’t want to declare anything other than ‘Hey, jerks, I’m thirteen, leave me alone. Macaroni and cheese is still my favorite food—how would I know who I want to kiss?’”)

Nate explicitly states his sexual ambiguity at the outset. However, everybody else in town is eager to label him. This is because Nate is unique in a way that makes the townsfolk uncomfortable. They link Nate’s love of acting and singing to him being gay.

“I didn’t want to let on. That everything is riding on me making this happen. That I have to return home as good as Anthony is, at something. Anything. Or not return home at all, preferably.”

All his life, Nate has lived in the shadow of his older brother Anthony. He finds it difficult to see his own value because nobody around him has helped him do so. The Fosters focus on Anthony—therefore, Nate uses him as a measuring stick to determine his own self-worth.

“I decide I’ve never felt any more at home than I have today, in this city that whizzes past me. In this city that, brilliantly, couldn’t care less about me.”

The people in Jankburg wish to make Nate conform; his parents obsess over his oddness and his classmates abuse him for it. This quote demonstrates Nate’s relief to be in an eccentric place where nobody cares what he does or how he looks.

“We only want kids who really, really want to be here, who go to bed at night and dream of Broadway and wake up in the morning and cry for Broadway! Who eat, bathe, and juggle Broadway […] So please, please, only line up if you and you alone want to be here, kiddos!”

The casting director gives this advice to the audition hopefuls, many of whom are being propelled by ambitious adult family members. Unlike these children, Nate passionately wants to audition, even when nobody else in his family does.

“She probably avoided me for years for this very reason, probably because I remind her too much of all the people in my family who are too closed-minded to accept that she had a New York dream too; that she wouldn’t work at Flora’s Floras and wanted, instead, something more for herself, something different and less grey? Well, it all makes me cry.”

For years, Nate has been out of contact with Aunt Heidi. In this quote, he reflects on why she distanced herself. For the first time, he recognizes their spiritual kinship: Both have dreams that could never be realized in Jankburg.

“If you have a special skill you’d like to show off […] you can bring those items in and set them in the corner of the room.’ I look around and wonder if I can show them Libby’s emergency note. My special skill is being protected by other children who are smarter than I am.”

In this quote, Nate demonstrates his poor self-image. He is inexperienced in the audition process and what will be expected of him. Aside from this, life in Jankburg has reinforced his sense of helplessness. It takes a decisive person like Libby to make him feel secure.

“Every moment in life is an audition. Every moment, and not just when you’re dancing or singing for us, if you get that far, is a moment to show who you are.”

One of the casting crew gives this advice to the audition hopefuls. Nate has been demonstrating who he is all his life—but in the audition for the role of Jankburg’s golden boy, he fails miserably. However, the quirks that make him a reject in Jankburg make him a hit in New York. Part of the reason why Nate wins the role of E.T. is that he is always himself.

“A new reason to like New York, all over again—the people may be faster and taller and jugglier and more successful than back home, but it’s clear that they’re also crazier. That to immerse myself in their groupings is to emerge the most normal, as well.”

Nate is painfully aware of his eccentricities when compared to the gray normalcy of Jankburg. However, changing his context to New York has a positive effect on his self-image. Everyone in New York is odd, so Nate is normal by comparison. He’s never felt the blessed relief of fitting in before.

“‘We can’t stop talking about you,’ one of them says. ‘We’ve never seen an audition like yours.’ […] ‘I hope that’s a good thing,’ I say, and can feel my leg shaking. ‘Well, it’s always good to be memorable, Garret Charles says, ‘though we can’t figure out what makes you so memorable.’”

The casting crew is impressed by Nate’s audition, but nobody can figure out why. Perhaps, this is because Nate has put his whole heart into his performance. Many of the other children regard the audition as just another role, while Nate regards it as the fulfillment of his destiny.

“Nobody in my family would ever have given me such simple, helpful advice […] Mom can never have a tough talk with me, passing it all off to Dad, who passes it all off to God. Mom just talks in figure eights, making everything around her dizzy.”

At several points in the novel, Nate talks about the passive-aggressive behavior of the people in Jankburg. Nobody ever comes out and says what they truly mean. In this quote, Nate has just received the casting director’s polite advice to buy some deodorant. The directness of New Yorkers impresses him.

“A neighborhood that never cared about me before, suddenly spinning into itself, looking everywhere but here. A whole world revolving around Nate Foster, for once. It’s practically embarrassing. Practically.”

Libby tells Nate that the entire neighborhood is searching for him, as she blackmailed Anthony into keeping silent about his true whereabouts. While Nate received negative attention from his community in the past, for the first time, he is getting the chance to feel that he matters to the people who usually dismiss him.

“Even with God as a friend, I was still broken […] I never want to go home. I never want to ride another bus again, or see Anthony, or accept Jesus Christ as my personal anything.”

Nate bitterly recalls his intolerant bullies at Christian youth camp. While the message that “Jesus saves” is drummed into everyone’s heads, in practice, this message doesn’t apply to boys who might be gay. The camp experience does nothing but reinforce Nate’s sense that he is a misfit.

“‘You have the best daughter in the world, and have done one heck of a job’—and then I do cry, because I know this is going to be Mrs. Jones’s legacy. That Libby is what she’ll have given this world.”

During one of Nate’s many calls to Libby, he gets her mother on the phone to express his gratitude for Libby’s friendship. He realizes that without Libby’s support, his Broadway dream might have never come true. His tears are a tribute to her importance in his life.

“‘But you’re right, Nathan. Even when you live in Astoria, there’s nothing like New York.’ ‘I know!’ I say. ‘There’s cupcake places, like, everywhere, and boys can dance next to each other.’”

Freckles agrees with Nate’s assessment of how special New York is. Like Heidi, Freckles has become jaded to the wonders of the big city. Both adults get a chance to revisit their own early excitement through Nate’s innocent eyes.

“It feels good to say these words to someone who isn’t my guidance counselor, especially because my guidance counselor also doubles as the track coach, and hates me.”

Nate indirectly indicts the support system that his hometown provides. A guidance counselor is meant to help teenagers navigate their difficult adolescent years. Instead, Nate’s emotional wellbeing has been entrusted to a sports coach, who emphasizes the physical at the expense of the psyche.

“‘You’ll have to tell me every single moment, or act it out, when we’re face to face in my basement.’ But I know I won’t be able to. That to talk about New York would mean to remember everything I’m leaving, everything I didn’t get to get used to.”

Libby continues to encourage Nate over the phone, but at this point, he believes he’s failed his audition and will be returning to the gray world of Jankburg. Reliving his experience in New York would be painful as he believes he will never return.

“It’s one thing to be old, to be forty or fifty with a broken heart, but it’s practically terminal when you’re thirteen. When you’re thirteen with a broken heart, I bet your valves aren’t even strong enough to mend themselves.”

Nate has just received news that he didn’t get the part of Elliott. This doesn’t simply represent a setback, but the death of a dream. Nate has taken an all-or-nothing approach to his audition, not realizing that a dream doesn’t die until one gives it up.

“And suddenly she’s definitely crying. ‘What’s wrong, Aunt Heidi?’ I say. She shakes her head and gulps. ‘It’s just like I’m seeing myself in you, is all. It’s just that I’m trying to remember what it felt like when even Times Square seemed cool, and not like just another mall.’”

Heidi’s emotional reaction to Nate’s fresh take on New York is an indication of how much of herself she has lost. She allowed setbacks to demoralize her enough to give up on her own dreams. Nate’s appearance in her life reawakens a spark of hope that had all but died.

“A woman walks by the window, and she’s wearing a catsuit, a whole catsuit with ears and everything. And that’s what’s so cool about New York, how much it can open your mind; I barely even did a double take, thinking catsuits were a total norm here.”

Nate belatedly realizes that it is Halloween, so the passerby’s catsuit is probably a costume. Nevertheless, he is fully prepared to accept someone wearing a catsuit any day of the year—as New Yorkers wouldn’t stand aghast at the sight of such a fashion choice. In Jankburg, people only get to be eccentric on socially approved holidays like Halloween.

“(And while I’m not technically a little person or a puppet expert or a girl, Mr. Garret Charles, of all people, responded to my knee crawls, and could picture me “bringing to life an alien creature with a weird voice and an underbite and a waddle.” All the qualities back home that get me nearly killed could actually get me nearly famous, here).”

This quote encapsulates Nate’s new understanding of himself. He’s only an oddball in Jankburg because his unique qualities are undesirable to the townsfolk. In New York, he’s exactly what the casting crew wants. Nate hasn’t changed—the difference lies in others’ perception of his value.

“One good kid who gets a lot of things wrong, most of the time, back home, but might be getting everything right, here. A kid who might have found someplace where he doesn’t have to change anything about himself, to fit in. (A kid going as himself for Halloween, but the best version, the ultimate.) A better Nate than ever.”

This quote elaborates on the previous quote (Important Quote #21). Nate has found his proper context. In being appreciated by others for who he is, Nate can finally appreciate himself. He is a better Nate than ever, not because he’s changed but because he’s learned to value himself.

“Dad specifically never talks about the past, and Mom never talks about much, period, in front of Dad. It’s all about Anthony. All about Anthony’s future and nothing about the past, ever.”

At several points in the novel, Nate mentions how emotionally repressed and passive-aggressive his family is. Part of this repression depends on pretending the past never happened. Refusing to acknowledge the past is a way of erasing the time in a person’s youth when they still had aspirations. The Fosters failed to realize any of their dreams, so the past is a closed book.

“‘I had gay friends once I got to Pitt, and I loved theater, and I didn’t want to work at Grandma Flora’s flower shop. You know, all of it. We stopped talking because of all of it.’ Right. ‘Of course.’ A very traditional barn with no room for black sheep.”

Heidi explains her estrangement from her sister, Nate’s mother, to Nate. Because Nate’s dreams are exactly like his aunt’s, he can relate to her frustration with the family. They are both black sheep, but the ancestral barn has no room for either of them.