ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR
WINNER OF THE KIRKUS PRIZE
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and bestselling author of Backlash comes In the Darkroom an astonishing confrontation with the enigma of her father and the larger riddle of identity consuming our age.
In the summer of 2004 I set out to investigate someone I scarcely knew my father. The project began with a grievance the grievance of a daughter whose parent had absconded from her life. I was in pursuit of a scofflaw an artful dodger who had skipped out on so many thingsobligation affection culpability contrition. I was preparing an indictment amassing discovery for a trial. But somewhere along the line the prosecutor became a witness.
So begins Susan Faludis extraordinary inquiry into the meaning of identity in the modern world and in her own haunted family saga. When the feminist writer learned that her 76-year-old fatherlong estranged and living in Hungaryhad undergone sex reassignment surgery that investigation would turn personal and urgent. How was this new parent who identified as a complete woman now connected to the silent explosive?? and ultimately violent father she had known?? the photographer who??d built his career on the alteration of images?
Faludi chases that mystery into the recesses of her suburban childhood and her father??s many previous incarnations: American dad?? Alpine mountaineer?? swashbuck