Becoming a Man
The Story of a Transition
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A “scrupulously honest” (O, The Oprah Magazine) debut memoir that explores one man’s gender transition amid a pivotal political moment in America.
Becoming a Man is a “moving narrative [that] illuminates the joy, courage, necessity, and risk-taking of gender transition” (Kirkus Reviews). For fifty years P. Carl lived as a girl and then as a queer woman, building a career, a life, and a loving marriage, yet still waiting to realize himself in full. As Carl embarks on his gender transition, he takes us inside the complex shifts and questions that arise throughout—the alternating moments of arrival and estrangement. He writes intimately about how transitioning reconfigures both his own inner experience and his closest bonds—his twenty-year relationship with his wife, Lynette; his already tumultuous relationships with his parents; and seemingly solid friendships that are subtly altered, often painfully and wordlessly.
Carl “has written a poignant and candid self-appraisal of life as a ‘work-of-progress’” (Booklist) and blends the remarkable story of his own personal journey with incisive cultural commentary, writing beautifully about gender, power, and inequality in America. His transition occurs amid the rise of the Trump administration and the #MeToo movement—a transition point in America’s own story, when transphobia and toxic masculinity are under fire even as they thrive in the highest halls of power. Carl’s quest to become himself and to reckon with his masculinity mirrors, in many ways, the challenge before the country as a whole, to imagine a society where every member can have a vibrant, livable life. Here, through this brave and deeply personal work, Carl brings an unparalleled new voice to this conversation.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this deeply personal and moving debut memoir, theater writer Carl shares the story of his difficult yet triumphant gender transition. After living as a queer woman for most of his life, Carl transitioned at age 51. His longtime wife, Lynette, had a hard adjustment, one that Carl struggled to understand "I never equated my transition, becoming me, with leaving you," Carl writes to Lynette. "I felt I was appearing in the relationship for the first time." Carl's raw, thoughtful musings on the life he now lives and how powerless he was as a woman (as a graduate student, Carl was nearly raped by another student), yet how privileged he suddenly is as a white man are incisive and intimate, ranging from empathy for Christine Blasey Ford, accuser of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, to a somewhat shameful satisfaction at talking "shit with another guy right before I walk in the house and have to deal with whatever it is we're arguing about." Carl's honest, timely musings illustrate the deep ruminations that can arise about one's assigned gender at birth and the gender one becomes. Carl's thoughts about sexuality and his compassionate feelings for sexual assault survivors will captivate readers from the first page to the last.