So wild revising this draft I wrote last century. My main character would have looked personally traumatized by his homeland back then to most US readers, and that was kind of the point. Recent events, however, make him seem super reasonable about his birth nation as he’s applying to renounce it.
![Book passage (with BF name elided to prevent spoilers):
The officer glanced at [boyfriend]—at [boyfriend’s] soaring eyebrow. “Well, people change their minds and it’s a nightmare,” she said after a beat. “What if your future wife is American and you want to return home to start a life with her there? You’ll have absolutely no right of residency or employment, and certainly none of the unique freedoms, opportunities and protections afforded US citizens.”
It took a lot—a lot—not to make some kind of retort about the absolutely fucking inflated, mythic notion of American-only freedom and opportunity I was taught at school, never mind this so-called protection I saw little of growing up back there. What goddamn fucking protection was I afforded when I was fifteen years old? What fucking freedom was I ever afforded in William Hansen’s house? I wanted to curse this at her—at everyone working on Elgin Road. I wanted to mock the lie of American exceptionalism on that technically American bit of sod in the middle of Dublin, and holler Land of the Not-as-Free-as-You-Think-It-Is! at the staff and marines until my throat bled. I wanted to give the marine peering through the porthole at me the jauntiest middle-finger I could muster, but instead I pressed my passport in my hands and looked at [boyfriend].](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:5cn2ujdwfrozjuvfk3vmtqhq/bafkreicrogwqqsqwk7prdcdpc5eucxezqcm2avklt6npn5srsbrbddtxfu)
