She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders » (Reprint)

JENNIFER FINNEY BOYLAN is co-chair of the English department at Colby College. As James Finney Boylan she wrote three critically praised novels and a collection of short stories. She lives in Maine with her family.

The provocative bestseller She’s Not There is the winning, utterly surprising story of a person changing genders. By turns hilarious and deeply moving, Jennifer Finney Boylan explores the territory that lies between men and women, examines changing friendships, and rejoices in the redeeming power of family. Told in Boylan’s fresh voice, She’s Not There is about a person bearing and finally revealing a complex secret. Through her clear eyes, She’s Not There provides a new window on the confounding process of accepting our true selves.

“Probably no book I’ve read in recent years has made me so question my basic assumptions about both the centrality and the permeability of gender, and made me recognize myself in a situation I’ve never known and have never faced . . . The universality of the astonishingly uncommon: that’s the trick of She’s Not There. And with laughs, too. What a good book.” —Anna Quindlen, from the Introduction to the Book-of-the-Month-Club edition.

The New York Times

Although this story is by no means pain-free (one friend commits suicide), Ms. Boylan places her emphasis elsewhere. What she accomplishes, most entertainingly, is to draw the reader into extremely strange circumstances as if they were utterly normal. It's easy to feel, as Mr. Russo apparently did, when being told by his friend's doctor that sexual reassignment surgery and novel writing require similar precision. — Janet Maslin