In the Darkroom

A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR

WINNER OF THE KIRKUS PRIZE

SHORTLISTED FOR THE PULITZER PRIZE 2017

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and best-selling author of Backlash, an astonishing confrontation with the enigma of her father and the larger riddle of identity.

In 2004 feminist writer Susan Faludi set out to investigate someone she scarcely knew: her estranged father. Steven Faludi had lived many roles: suburban dad, Alpine mountaineer, swashbuckling adventurer in the Amazon, Jewish fugitive in Holocaust Budapest. Living in Hungary after sex reassignment surgery and identifying as ‘a complete woman now,’ how was this new parent connected to the silent and ultimately violent father who had built his career on the alteration of images?

Faludi’s struggle to come to grips with her father's metamorphosis takes her across borders – historical, political, religious, sexual – and brings her face to face with the question of the age: is identity something you "choose" or is it the very thing you cannot escape?

Reviews

‘The book …does much to document and try and make sense of the suddenly urgent issue of gender fluidity and discrimination, its confusions and challenges … remarkable, moving and courageous’ Guardian

‘An indelible picture of Stefanie editing her life until she found an identity she could live with’ Sunday Times

‘AN OUT-AND-OUT MASTERPIECE’ Observer

‘An extraordinary act of love’ Financial Times

‘Candid and courageous, it’s dizzyingly well written’, Books of the Year, Sunday Times

‘An absolute stunner of a memoir — probing, steel-nerved, moving in ways you’d never expect’ New York Times

‘Faludi's remarkable, moving and courageous book is extremely fair-minded’ Guardian

‘In the Darkroom reads like a mystery thriller yet packs the emotional punch of a carefully crafted memoir. Susan Faludi’s investigation into her father’s life reveals, with humour and poignancy, the central paradox of being someone’s child. However close, our parents will always be, perhaps by nature of the role, fundamentally enigmatic to us.’ Amanda Foreman

‘Faludi weaves together these strands of her father's identity – Jewishness, nationality, gender – with energy, wit and nuance … Faludi has paid her late father a fine tribute by bringing her to life in such a compelling, truthful story’ New Statesman

‘[A] mighty new book … a searching investigation of identity barely disguised as a sometimes funny and sometimes very painful family saga … reticent, elegant and extremely clever …an out-and-out masterpiece’ Observer

‘A fascinating chronicle of a decade trying to understand a parent who had always been inscrutable’ Economist

‘Compelling’ Sunday Times

Well-written … touching … compelling’ The Times

‘An astonishing, unique book that should be essential reading for anyone wanting to explore transsexuality’s place in contemporary culture’ Irish Independent

About the author

Susan Faludi is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and the
author of ‘The Terror Dream’, ‘Stiffed’, and ‘Backlash’, which
won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction.
A former reporter for The Wall Street Journal, she has written
for The New Yorker, The New York Times, Harper’s, and The Baffler, among other publications.