Becoming a Man

October 14, 2019
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.

October 15, 2019
A transgender man chronicles his physical and psychological transition. In 2017, author and social justice activist Carl (Artist-in-Residence/Emerson Coll.) was just seven months into testosterone hormone therapy when he began to be addressed as "sir" by service staff at a Manhattan hotel. It was a celebratory moment for the author, who was then just shy of his 51st birthday. Born Polly in Elkhart, Indiana, Carl spent "decades trying to know her, shape her into something that I can bear to live with," but his life as a female was a futile battle with a persistent biological need to be male, which led to depression, rage, and multiple suicide attempts. Carl's family life was equally complex and traumatic. He writes lucidly of early abusive behavior by his parents and, later in life, how their confusion and transphobia made becoming their son an uphill battle. His transition also began eroding his marriage when he completed an elective double mastectomy in 2013, yet his desperate need to finally "see more dimension to the world" and connect to his true gender persisted despite despair and misinterpretation. Throughout the memoir, Carl examines the nature of toxic and fragile masculinity and acknowledges lifelong issues with the problematic male gender. "I want to punch men long before I become a man," he admits. Combining political debate and discourse on gender equality, the author's elegant yet powerful prose will hopefully promote action from readers. His reflective memories often read like poetry, as when describing his own private process as an "evolving bodily transubstantiation where in one moment I am material subject matter to be consumed and in another I feel like a holy essence, my body and blood both sacrificed and blessed into being." This moving narrative illuminates the joy, courage, necessity, and risk-taking of his gender transition and the ways his loved ones became affected and eventually enriched by it. A passionate, eloquent memoir about how "complex stories of humanity [and] our capacity for imagination are what give us hope."

COPYRIGHT(2019) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

November 1, 2019

Carl marks his debut with a series of chapters that read more like individual essays than a continuous narrative. He describes the challenges and triumphs of his transition from publicly presenting as a queer woman to a man. Meditations include the influence of Carl's father on his own experience and presentation of manhood, the obstacles his transition posed to his marriage and to his wife's identity as a lesbian woman, and the privilege Carl now experiences as a white man. Introspective and self-interrogating, this story of gender transition offers a nuanced perspective, which helps pluralize and diversify descriptions of the experience. Carl's prose is generally clear, though in the chapter "Traveling with Men," a story that details a hiking expedition and which juggles several personalities, Carl sometimes struggles with clarity. But throughout, Carl offers a level of intimacy and self-reflection that is fairly unique, especially given the highly personal content. VERDICT This is a memoir of the present, without closure or resolution, and the narrative sometimes feels incomplete or unsatisfying. Still, many readers will appreciate Carl's honesty and perhaps read this work alongside Charlie Cragg's excellent anthology, To My Trans Sisters.--Abby Hargreaves, District of Columbia P.L.

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2020
Usually the term double consciousness, made famous by the civil rights activist W. E. B. Du Bois, refers to the experience of African Americans. But in his wondrous memoir, theater artist Carl uses it to refer to what it feels like to be a trans person who has lived in another person's body. He had been, to all appearances, a white, Midwestern woman for 50 years until, on March 16, 2017, everything changed. He became a man; that is, he finally became himself. This is the story of how that transformation came to be and his way of exploring what it means to undergo such change. Does a new body alter one's personality, one's inner life? Carl also addresses issues of white male privilege, which he unapologetically embraces after being invisible most of his life. Yet he is acutely aware of the toxic masculinity that shapes mainstream culture, from Brett Kavanaugh to the current occupant of the White House, a poison he hopes to transcend. Carl has written a poignant and candid self-appraisal of life as a work in progress. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)