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rdemos 's review for:
She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders
by Jennifer Finney Boylan
This is an autobiographical work tracing the narrator's path from boy to man to middle-aged woman. Boylan writes in a style that is sometimes disarmingly casual and overall quite cheerful, ending up a well-adjusted professional woman who is loved and supported by family, friends, and professional colleagues. This personal narrative is contrasted with the experiences of other transgendered characters s/he encounters: people who feel the burden of a non-integrated identity and run into all sorts of psychological problems and regrets. What was most interesting to me was the story and reaction of Boylan's best friend and long-suffering wife. The afterward written by this friend (Richard Russo) about Boylan resonated much more strongly with me than the main narrative and seemed to give more insight into Boylan's choices and personality than Boylan's first-person narrative.