Acknowledgements
Maraming salamat po sa in’yong lahat.
I remember when I was first learning Diné Bizaad I had an especially difficult time learning the Navajo word for “thank you.” I feel like the language is all about breath control: when to let the air push through tongue and teeth and when to stop it dead in its tracks. In the time it took me to learn how to pronounce ahe’hee properly, I had learned the depth of that “thank you” and what it meant to be thankful in my new family. I am glad it took that long to learn the word because, as I know from my days in theatre, struggling through meaning is part of arriving at an understanding. Let me struggle through this thank-you. Let me try to express my thanks when all I want to do is cry and hold you all. We did this together.
Ahe’hee to my partner, Nazbah Tom, whose powerful poem “We Have Been Occupied” is read during the pipeline protest in this book. I am honoured to have heard you read this poem and by your willingness to include your work in mine.
Donna-Michelle St. Bernard and lemonTree creations: those hours spent dramaturging the first manuscript will always hold a special place in my heart. I couldn’t do this work without you, and I hope you know what a blessing you are in this world.
Carolyn Smart and Queen’s University: thank you for the time, space and funds to work on this novel. I spent my valuable residency writing under the watchful eyes of ghosts. Releasing these words just steps away from Sir John A. Macdonald’s statue felt like the ultimate finger flip to the architect of the residential school system.
Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, House of Anansi, ChiZine and Book*hug: thank you for giving me the funds to be brave.
My agent, Marilyn Biderman: thank you for hustling to ensure this book could be read by all. I am forever grateful to those who contributed their insights and experiences through anonymous interviews. I hope my words did your stories justice.
I assembled a team of artist colleagues who represent various communities, including Disabled, Black, Brown, Indigenous, Muslim, Queer, Trans and Deaf-identified folks. Onar Usar, Kusha Dadui, Rania El Mugammar, Sage Lovell, Falen Johnson, Syrus Marcus Ware, Rashi Khilnani, Anne Graham, L, HC and others: your generosity in correcting me when I could do better is something I will never forget.
Erin Brockobić: thank you for giving me a full scholarship to Drag Queen University. It means a lot that you—a being brought into this world between borders and bullets—were a part of this project. Katleya Maya Neri: my Carter kin. Thank you for your insights about life in the military. Thank you to my #CanLit barkada who have helped me make some difficult decisions in my career leading up to the publishing of this book: David Chariandy, Carrianne Leung, Canisia Lubrin, Cherie Dimaline, Vivek Shraya. I’m just a Scarborough girl from the theatre world, so your guidance was very much appreciated. You all are welcome to my house any day of the week, dinner included.
To my brother, Tyrone Tom: I love you, no matter what. Thank you for sharing with me the true price of war.
To Team Jacaranda: thank you for sharing my words across the pond.
Michelle Herrera Mulligan: your energy and insights gave me the fuel to make it to the finish line. Much thanks to you and Atria for seeing the truth behind the Canadian fantasy.
Jennifer Mother-Effin Lambert: you are the real deal. I chose you to be my editor because I wanted to become a better writer. Thank you for your allyship, and thank you to Team HarperCollins Canada for this adventure.
To my two monkeys, Arden and Nazbah: I wrote this book wanting my beautiful Queer family to be safe. No matter what the future holds for people like us, know that I am honoured to have loved you both.
MY NAME IS CATHERINE HERNANDEZ. I AM THE MOTHER OF ARDEN MCNEILLY AND WIFE OF NAZBAH TOM. WE ALL DESERVE TO LIVE.
About the Author
CATHERINE HERNANDEZ is a proud Queer woman of colour, a radical mother, a theatre practitioner, an award-winning author and the outgoing artistic director of b current performing arts. She is of Filipino, Spanish, Chinese and Indian heritage, and she is married into the Navajo Nation. Hernandez is the author of the novel Scarborough, which is soon to be a motion picture; won the Jim Wong-Chu Emerging Writers Award as an unpublished manuscript; was a finalist for the Toronto Book Award, the Forest of Reading Evergreen Award, the Edmund White Award and the Trillium Book Award; and was longlisted for Canada Reads. She has also written the plays Singkil and Kilt Pins and the children’s books M Is for Mustache: A Pride ABC Book and I Promise. Hernandez lives in Toronto.
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Also by Catherine Hernandez
FICTION
Scarborough
Kilt Pins
Singkil
Copyright
Crosshairs
Copyright © 2020 by Catherine Hernandez.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Published by Harper Avenue, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
The poem “We Have Been Occupied” is written by Nazbah Tom.Used with permission.
Cover photos: Katrin Ray Shumakov/Getty Images (skyline), Jill Battaglia (campfire), Marko Kovacevic (author)
FIRST EDITION
EPub Edition SEPTEMBER 2020 EPub ISBN: 978-1-4434-5973-0
Version 06302020
Print ISBN: 978-1-4434-5972-3
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Title: Crosshairs : a novel / Catherine Hernandez.
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20200242660 | Canadiana (ebook) 20200242687 | ISBN 9781443459723 (softcover) | ISBN 9781443459730 (ebook)
Classification: LCC PS8615.E75 C76 2020 | DDC C813/.6—dc23
LSC/H 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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