Real Americans

Nick and Timothy always feel slightly different than their classmates. Timothy is more interested in social justice than his peers, and Nick feels like an outsider on their tiny island. Although other boys their age play basketball in their free time, Nick and Timothy decide to get jobs. They begin working for a local man who owns an oyster farm, and soon, they have enough money to purchase DNA tests. Timothy is, as he thought, entirely Jewish. Nick is half white and half Chinese, and he isn’t sure if he is relieved, surprised, or confused. Timothy suggests that Nick message one of his distant cousins, who are also in the DNA database, to ask about his family.

It is Christmas. Nick’s mother does not allow them to spend money on presents because she hopes to instill a sense of anti-materialism in him. He envies other children but has tried to make the best of his mother’s eccentricities. As a present, he takes her on a tour of the oyster farm. They both enjoy themselves. Lily gets Nick an appointment to take his driving exam because she has decided that making him wait until he turns 18 is too harsh. Nick goes over to Timothy’s house, where he finds out that the DNA database has turned up a new DNA relative for him: his father. He and Timothy send him a message and wait for a reply.

December turns into January, and Nick’s father does not respond to his message. The boys busy themselves studying for the upcoming SAT exams. Just as the two boys are set to take their SATs, Nick gets a notification that his father, Matthew, has messaged him. He remains nervous throughout the test, but afterward, the two begin a correspondence. Not long after they start messaging, his father arrives on the island. Nick looks just like him, and he is both nervous and excited. He refrains from telling his mother about Matthew’s visit and wonders why she has kept his identity secret from him all these years.

Nick and Timothy research Matthew online. He lives in New York and works in venture capital. He has another son, Samuel, who is two years younger than Nick. Nick wonders what his life would have been like if he had grown up in New York.

Nick and Timothy agree to meet Matthew in Seattle. Nick remains nervous around his father and tells him that he doesn’t want a relationship just because his father feels guilty. He explains that his mother told him that Matthew didn’t want anything to do with him. Matthew assures Nick that he never said any such thing and that he wants to get to know him.

Matthew returns to Seattle at the start of Nick’s senior year. He asks where Nick wants to go to college, and Nick responds that although Lily would like him to stay in Washington, he wants to go to Princeton with Timothy. Matthew encourages him to apply to other schools and to feel free to use his last name, which might open doors. When Nick arrives home after lunch with Matthew, he finds that his mother has installed the internet at long last. She has kept the two isolated for the entirety of his life, but she has decided that he’ll need the ability to go online to complete his college applications. Nick is happy; unbeknownst to Lily, Matthew got him a laptop.

Nick and Timothy are accepted to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Columbia. The two decide to take a trip to visit each campus, and Timothy makes them fake IDs so that they can purchase alcohol. Nick’s mother is shocked that he applied to the Ivy League schools (he kept those applications from her and paid for them with his father’s credit card rather than hers), but she is proud of him. While on the trip, he experiences a weird sort of nightmare followed by what feels like a temporal glitch. For a moment, time seems to stand still. Unbeknownst to him, his mother has long had episodes just like this.

The boys have an eventful trip. They attend a college party at which Timothy drinks too much, and it is obvious to Nick that he has overstayed his welcome. Timothy’s resulting hangover is severe, but the two make their way that day into New York City to visit Columbia. Their Chinatown hotel has bedbugs, and they have to buy new clothing and throw away their suitcases. Timothy says that one of his aunts has an apartment in Manhattan, and they arrange to stay there while she is out of town. Nick emails his father and asks to meet but gets no reply.

Nick and Timothy leave New York City and head to New Haven, Connecticut, to visit Yale. The boys meet a girl who introduces herself as Miranda. Nick is smitten, and Miranda also seems interested. Like Nick, she is half Chinese. She takes them to a local noodle shop and gives them an unofficial tour of the campus.

Later, their fake IDs are confiscated by a bartender, and Timothy angrily goes for a walk on his own. He returns to their room heavily intoxicated. Still seeming upset, he asks Nick if he realizes how much his good looks help him move through the world with ease. He argues that Nick has unexamined privilege. Nick has never considered this and feels confused by Timothy’s newfound antagonism. Timothy then surprises Nick by kissing him. He is shocked that Nick hadn’t realized that he was gay. He claims that his parents figured it out when he was 10. Nick feels unsure about their friendship but tries to act normally the next morning.

After Nick and Timothy return home, Nick gets an email from Matthew. His other son overdosed on drugs, which is why he hadn’t responded to Nick’s email. Nick writes out a long, emotional letter and then deletes it. He instead sends a short email relating his decision to go to Yale. Timothy, who wanted to attend Harvard, has changed his mind and will also be attending Yale. Nick feels sure that his father is not truly interested in him. For the rest of senior year, his friendship with Timothy remains unchanged. The two never speak about the kiss. 

At Yale, Nick meets his roommate, Amir, who is from Texas. He already misses his mother, even though he decided that she should not accompany him to Connecticut to get settled in. As the semester gets underway, Nick feels increasingly lost and alone. He is unprepared for the academic rigor of Yale and spends less and less time with Timothy. Timothy, on the other hand, is thriving. He makes friends easily, joins an improv group, and starts dating an older boy. He seems fully at home in their new environment, and Nick feels as though their friendship is dissolving.

Nick is struggling in all his courses, and he and his mother determine that he should stay on campus for Thanksgiving break. His birthday is during that week, and he receives an email from Matthew. He hasn’t been returning his father’s calls, messages, or emails, and he deletes the birthday greeting without responding. He develops insomnia and participates in a sleep study. He’s told that his sleep is actually pretty good, but the doctor suggests that he might be depressed. He attends parties without really connecting with anyone and has sex for the first time with someone he does not know particularly well or care about. He runs into Miranda again, who has a new boyfriend named Isaiah. She seems to notice how tired and withdrawn Nick has become. He feels lost.

Lily comes to visit Nick and immediately comments on how exhausted he looks. He shares about his insomnia and his bizarre temporal glitches. She seizes on that detail and explains that she also gets them. She cooks nourishing Chinese recipes for him, and he begins to feel better. After her visit, his grades improve, and he begins to feel more at ease. He returns home for the summer after the year ends. Timothy has an internship and will not be back in Washington. Nick is happy to be reunited with his mother but feels as though college is changing him, molding him into someone new. He feels a new distance between them.

Nick returns to school the following year. Right away, he runs into Miranda. She asks him to accompany her on an errand to purchase some textbooks from a “rando” she contacted on Craigslist, and he agrees. The man turns out to be one of her professors. He offers them a glass of wine, and although Nick thinks it’s a bad idea, they stay. They drink too much, and when they leave, Miranda asks Nick to buy more wine. He ends up kissing her. She kisses him back at first but then brings up her boyfriend and leaves.

When Nick returns to his dorm, Lily calls. She found his old fake ID, which had the name Nick Maier on it. The two argue, and Nick accuses her of lying about his father and preventing him from having a normal childhood. She tries to explain that the situation is more complicated than he realizes.

Miranda calls a few months later and invites Nick out. The two end up in bed, and their relationship blossoms from there. He is able to talk to her about his family, and he feels closer and closer to her. She gets an internship in Manhattan that summer, and they move together into a sublet. Nick does not have a job and feels broke in comparison with Miranda, although she pays for everything without complaint.

Nick gets a job at a local restaurant. Now that he is working, he and Miranda see less of each other. One day, when he decides to surprise her at work with lunch, he finds that she is not there. She returns a half hour later looking flustered and surprised to see Nick. She was having lunch with a male coworker.

In an effort to spend more time together, Nick invites her to the restaurant where he works. With his savings and his substantial employee discount, Nick can afford the expensive food and wine. During dinner, Miranda breaks up with him. She hasn’t cheated on him with her coworker, but she has feelings for him. Unsure of what to do, Nick reaches out to Matthew, who immediately sends him the address of an apartment where he can stay for the rest of the summer.

Matthew comes to visit Nick, who promptly asks for more information about his relationship with Lily. Matthew explains that his parents knew Lily’s parents through the foundation they ran. His father and Nick’s maternal grandmother worked on gene editing, and when Lily was young, they gave her an experimental treatment meant to mitigate the impact of a genetic disorder. The treatment made her infertile, and to conceive Nick using IVF, they had to include more of Matthew’s genetic material than Lily’s. This is why Nick does not look Chinese. Lily hadn’t found out about the childhood genetic treatment until after Nick was born, and she gave Matthew a choice: his family or her. He could not leave his family, so Lily left.

Nick returns to campus for his junior year. He misses Miranda but understands that she is trying to figure out who she is as a biracial woman. Despite their shared biracial heritage, Miranda does not want a partner who looks as white as Nick.

Lily invites Nick home for Christmas. He is still angry with her, so he accepts Matthew’s offer to come to New Haven instead.

As they head into their senior year, both Nick and Timothy are tapped to join Skull and Bones, a secret Yale society. At the first meeting he attends, Miranda is also present. Nick is struck by her hypocrisy: She is a staunch critic of elitism, unequal power structures, and patriarchy, yet she is part of one of the most elite secret societies at one of the United States’ most elite universities.

Nick spends an increasing amount of time with Matthew. He gets to know his grandfather, Otto, through a series of trips to the Hamptons and finds that he enjoys living in Matthew’s large extra apartment. He begins to work with the Maier family foundation. Because of his biology major, he is well suited to the job. He cannot help but feel that genetic research is a way to effect positive change in the world and contrasts his own experience with the lip service he feels Miranda pays to social justice. At the foundation, he comes into contact with Sam, Matthew’s other son. Sam still doesn’t know who he is, even though their resemblance is uncanny. Sam, unlike Nick, is spoiled and lacks a work ethic. Nick begins to understand that Sam is actually Matthew’s favorite son.

At the end of the summer, Nick attends a work lunch with Sam and a group of their colleagues. Sam spends lavishly and then insists that everyone go out with him later that night. He drinks heavily, and one by one, their coworkers leave. Sam continues drinking and pulls out a small bag of cocaine. He insists that Nick continue to drink, and he finally looks at him and angrily asks what it is like to be the favorite son. Nick tries to explain that he isn’t the favorite and that Sam had gotten the chance to spend his entire childhood with their father, but Sam doesn’t listen. The next day at work, both boys are hungover. Sam collapses, and someone in the office calls an ambulance. The paramedic offers Matthew the opportunity to ride along in the ambulance, but he declines.