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In the Darkroom
PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST
ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW 'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR
WINNER OF THE KIRKUS PRIZE
When feminist writer Susan Faludi learned that her seventy-six-year-old father―long estranged and living in Hungary―had undergone sex reassignment surgery, the revelation would launch her on an extraordinary inquiry into the meaning of identity in the modern world and in her own haunted family saga. 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 American dad, Alpine mountaineer, swashbuckling adventurer in the Amazon outback, Jewish fugitive in Holocaust Budapest. When the author travels to Hungary to reunite with her father, she drops into a labyrinth of dark histories and dangerous politics in a country hell-bent on repressing its past and constructing a fanciful―and virulent―nationhood.
Faludi’s struggle to come to grips with her father’s metamorphosis takes her across borders―historical, political, religious, sexual―to bring her face to face with the question of the Is identity something you “choose,” or is it the very thing you can’t escape?
ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW 'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR
WINNER OF THE KIRKUS PRIZE
When feminist writer Susan Faludi learned that her seventy-six-year-old father―long estranged and living in Hungary―had undergone sex reassignment surgery, the revelation would launch her on an extraordinary inquiry into the meaning of identity in the modern world and in her own haunted family saga. 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 American dad, Alpine mountaineer, swashbuckling adventurer in the Amazon outback, Jewish fugitive in Holocaust Budapest. When the author travels to Hungary to reunite with her father, she drops into a labyrinth of dark histories and dangerous politics in a country hell-bent on repressing its past and constructing a fanciful―and virulent―nationhood.
Faludi’s struggle to come to grips with her father’s metamorphosis takes her across borders―historical, political, religious, sexual―to bring her face to face with the question of the Is identity something you “choose,” or is it the very thing you can’t escape?
480 pages, Paperback
First published June 14, 2016
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About the author
Susan Faludi
23 books391 followersSusan C. Faludi (born April 18, 1959) is an American humanist, journalist and author. She won a Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism in 1991, for a report on the leveraged buyout of Safeway Stores, Inc., a report that the Pulitzer Prize committee commended for depicting the "human costs of high finance".
Faludi was born to a Jewish family in Queens, New York in 1959 and grew up in Yorktown Heights, New York. Her mother was a homemaker and journalist and is a long-time New York University student. Her father is a photographer who had emigrated from Hungary, a survivor of the Holocaust. Susan graduated from Harvard University in 1981, where she wrote for The Harvard Crimson, and became a journalist, writing for The New York Times, Miami Herald, Atlanta Journal Constitution, San Jose Mercury News, and The Wall Street Journal, among other publications. Throughout the eighties she wrote several articles on feminism and the apparent resistance to the movement. Seeing a pattern emerge, Faludi wrote Backlash, which was released in late 1991. In 2008-2009, Faludi was a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. She lives with fellow author Russ Rymer. Since January 2013, Faludi has been a contributing editor at The Baffler magazine in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
(from Wikipedia)
Faludi was born to a Jewish family in Queens, New York in 1959 and grew up in Yorktown Heights, New York. Her mother was a homemaker and journalist and is a long-time New York University student. Her father is a photographer who had emigrated from Hungary, a survivor of the Holocaust. Susan graduated from Harvard University in 1981, where she wrote for The Harvard Crimson, and became a journalist, writing for The New York Times, Miami Herald, Atlanta Journal Constitution, San Jose Mercury News, and The Wall Street Journal, among other publications. Throughout the eighties she wrote several articles on feminism and the apparent resistance to the movement. Seeing a pattern emerge, Faludi wrote Backlash, which was released in late 1991. In 2008-2009, Faludi was a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. She lives with fellow author Russ Rymer. Since January 2013, Faludi has been a contributing editor at The Baffler magazine in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 637 reviews
September 7, 2017
This was an intriguing memoir that addresses issues of identity - religious, cultural, and gender. Through her endeavors to reconcile her estranged relationship with her Hungarian, Jewish father (who recently transitioned into a woman), the author delves into her father’s past experiences during the Holocaust in Hungary. In order to survive anti- Semitism, persecution and deportation by the fascist Arrow Cross party and the Nazis, he became a chameleon…constantly reinventing himself in far off countries, including America before returning to his native Hungary. To conceal his Jewish identity, he transformed from Jewish to Christian and from István Friedman to Steven Faludi. Ultimately, at 76 years of age, he underwent sex reassignment surgery, finally becoming Stefánie Faludi; and, her metamorphosis was complete.
Stefánie survived the Holocaust by assuming new identities. Whether her final transformation was a result of her past experiences remained an enigma for me. Still, I was touched by this sensitive tribute to Susan Faludi's most conflicted father.
I knew very little about the history of Hungary and the destruction of their Jewish community before reading this story. According to this account, Hungary is once again right-wing, anti-Semitic and dangerous. This is chilling and a cautionary tale for the rise of fascism that I observe in America today.
Stefánie survived the Holocaust by assuming new identities. Whether her final transformation was a result of her past experiences remained an enigma for me. Still, I was touched by this sensitive tribute to Susan Faludi's most conflicted father.
I knew very little about the history of Hungary and the destruction of their Jewish community before reading this story. According to this account, Hungary is once again right-wing, anti-Semitic and dangerous. This is chilling and a cautionary tale for the rise of fascism that I observe in America today.
December 9, 2018
The last time Susan Faludi spoke to her father, he was violently assaulting a man who was dating her mother after their separation. That was 27 years ago. Fast forward: a photo postcard arrives, soon followed by an email entitled "Changes". Her long-estranged father has returned to Hungary, country of birth, but also the same country that forced their family into exile and murdered thousands of others who shared their religion and culture... and he recently had sex reassignment / affirmation surgery and is now Steffi Faludi.
In 2004, Susan decides to forge a new relationship with the woman she never knew: her father. She travels to Budapest, city of ghosts and secrets, and memories of her family. In this phenomenal story, we become acquainted with Steffi through her various identities and roles: father, husband, son, Holocaust survivor, professional photographer, Hungarian, world traveler, and finally Stefanie, a septuagenarian trans woman.
Faludi delves into her father's life with care, but also with brutal honesty. There is the larger narrative history of Hungary, history of trans/queer rights, feminism, and then through the personal lens of one incredible but imperfect person searching for identity, belonging, and ultimately acceptance for the true self.
One of the things that struck me again and again about this book was Faludi's sensitivity for gendered pronouns - she immediately adopted "she/her" for Steffi, while simultaneously calling her Father/Dad. There is even deeper layer of meaning to this point when Faludi states that Magyar, the Hungarian language, has no gendered pronouns. Her consistency in language is laudable, and really quite amazing considering the scope and timelines of this story.
I am still unpacking this one - there is just so much. This NYT review synthesizes it much better than I can: Susan Faludi's In the Darkroom.
A stunning book that I've run out of superlatives for - I highly recommend it.
In 2004, Susan decides to forge a new relationship with the woman she never knew: her father. She travels to Budapest, city of ghosts and secrets, and memories of her family. In this phenomenal story, we become acquainted with Steffi through her various identities and roles: father, husband, son, Holocaust survivor, professional photographer, Hungarian, world traveler, and finally Stefanie, a septuagenarian trans woman.
Faludi delves into her father's life with care, but also with brutal honesty. There is the larger narrative history of Hungary, history of trans/queer rights, feminism, and then through the personal lens of one incredible but imperfect person searching for identity, belonging, and ultimately acceptance for the true self.
One of the things that struck me again and again about this book was Faludi's sensitivity for gendered pronouns - she immediately adopted "she/her" for Steffi, while simultaneously calling her Father/Dad. There is even deeper layer of meaning to this point when Faludi states that Magyar, the Hungarian language, has no gendered pronouns. Her consistency in language is laudable, and really quite amazing considering the scope and timelines of this story.
I am still unpacking this one - there is just so much. This NYT review synthesizes it much better than I can: Susan Faludi's In the Darkroom.
A stunning book that I've run out of superlatives for - I highly recommend it.
February 26, 2019
For the most part harrowing, but with hilarious interludes, much needed comic relief. An extraordinary story of a extraordinarily complex person. I did not expect the rich content here about the Hungarian portion of the Shoah, content I’ve never come across before in my wide reading. Late in life, journalist Susan Faludi’s father had sex reassignment surgery on the cheap in Bangkok. For 25 years they had been estranged. In 2004, the author got an email from her father announcing the news. They reconciled.
Besides the familiar, “I’m a woman trapped in a man’s body” rationale, which I by no means discount, Faludi analyzed other possible reasons in a review of sex change memoirs that she undertook at her local public library. She was looking particularly for something like: “‘Could I also be seeking womanhood to reclaim my innocence, be exonerated from the sins of my male past?’ Or ‘Could I be craving the moral stature that comes with being oppressed.’” She found nothing of the kind; that is, no real inner searching. So those seeking and getting sex changes, especially the male-to-female candidates, did not seem to particularly value introspection. If anything, they were, like her father, quite the opposite, and viewed their former manhood as something to be banished from further consideration. They are women now, they say, the male portion of their lives has been expunged, for some never to be talked about again.
The author runs into a neo-fascist mob, the Magyar Garda, on the streets of Budapest in 2008, which seems to mimic the pre-World War 2 Arrow Cross organization, which helped in the destruction of two-thirds of a population of 850,000 Hungarian Jews. “One of every three people murdered in Auschwitz was a Hungarian Jew. The Hungarian Holocaust, its leading historian, Randolph L. Braham, concluded, was ‘the most concentrated and brutal ghettoization and deportation process of the Nazi’s Final Solution program.’”(p. 231)
“‘With the deepening crisis of assimilation in the late 19th century,’ Hungarian historian Viktor Karády wrote, ‘all forms of modern Jewish identity became saddled with some kind of psychic disturbance.’ Karády enumerated the symptoms of that disturbance: ‘an aversion’ to the past (what my father called ‘ancient history’); exhibitions of extreme self-hatred ‘invariably directed against “archaic” Jews who rejected “progress”’ (what my father called those ‘Orthodox Jews in their awful getup’); and ‘grotesque forms’ of compensatory behaviors, including maximal conformism in public and self-presentation,’ ‘imitating Christian traits that turned out to be utterly improbable, pointless or misplaced,’ and ‘proclamations of chauvinist bombast’ (or what my father would call being ‘100 percent Hungarian’). The impossible contradiction of self-denial and self-presentation led to a terrible irony. ‘The need to pay constant heed to fitting in,’ Karády wrote, ‘paradoxically drove those engaged in such strategies of concealment to an obsessional preoccupation with identity.’” (p. 235)
As I read more about the savage process of the Hungarian Shoah, I find I am slowing down. Nothing here can be skimmed. Rather my impulse is to memorize the sad statistics I have before me: “‘What was unique about the German regime in Hungary,’ Hungarian historian György Ránki observed, ‘was that a relatively large degree of national sovereignty was left in the hands of the [Hungarian] government....’ With only a handful of SS officers in the entire country, the Hungarian officialdom would seem to have been in an even stronger position to counter German edicts, but right from the start it chose otherwise. When the SS and Gestapo arrested hundreds of prominent and professional Jews in Budapest in the first two weeks of the occupation—and interned them in the rabbinical seminary building where my father had attended elementary school—neither the parliament nor Regent Horthy protested.... Eichmann was startled, if pleased, by the occupied state’s willingness, even enthusiasm. ‘Hungary was the only European country to encourage us relentlessly,’ he said later. ‘They were never satisfied with the rate of the deportations; no matter how much we speeded it up, they always found us too slow.’ He had no objections, of course: ‘Everything went like a dream.’” (p. 244)
The author includes a depiction, also unique in my reading life, of the feminized male Jew through the ages. Ponderous contrivances of hate such as Oskar Panizza’s The Operated Jew are described in which many doctors labor to transform Itzig Faitel, “‘a small squat man’ with a gimpy walk, a ‘cowardly’ voice, contorted spine and legs, and chest puffed up like a ‘chicken breast’” (p. 277) into a fabulous goy. Things go, as expected, terribly wrong. “As the 14th-century treatise by Italian encyclopedist and physician Cecco d’Ascoli asserted, ‘After the death of Christ, all Jewish men, like women, suffer menstruation.’” This is followed with the best explanation of that notorious collective hallucination, the “blood libel,” that I’ve ever read, Norman Cohn notwithstanding.
Wait until you get to the video of the father’s sex change. The intrepid journalist doesn’t shy from a complete if general description of the penectomy, labiaplasty, vaginoplasty etc. I’m not giving a sense of the full scope of the book; for there’s a recounting of the sweet life of the Magyar golden age, which ended with the Allied partition of Hungary in 1920, when it was reduced to about 28% of its prewar size; much evasion of Nazis in occupied Budapest; improbable but corroborated acts of heroism; trips through a postwar Europe in ruins; a lifelong fascination with filmmaking; an early pseudo-business in film distribution with school pals. Then it’s shipboard to Brazil for five years which feels like paradise to the young Faludi because of its near race-blindness, and then a move to the U.S.A. where he has a female love interest which doesn’t pan out. Eventually he goes to work for Condé Nast in New York as a darkroom technician, creating Photoshop-type magic before the Photoshop era. His penchant throughout his life for “faking things”—passes, letters of introduction, photos, certificates etc.—should not be minimized. The ultimate erasure, that of Stephanie’s penis, meant that she could no longer be made to drop trou as a way of having her “impure” Jewish blood confirmed. And yet in recent elections she voted for the fascist Fidesz party, which takes special pride in its hatred of Jews. What was it Santayana said?
This book holds up next to classics of parental biography like The Duke of Deception by Geoffrey Wolff. Narrative pleasures abound. The book tells many tales seamlessly and brilliantly.
Besides the familiar, “I’m a woman trapped in a man’s body” rationale, which I by no means discount, Faludi analyzed other possible reasons in a review of sex change memoirs that she undertook at her local public library. She was looking particularly for something like: “‘Could I also be seeking womanhood to reclaim my innocence, be exonerated from the sins of my male past?’ Or ‘Could I be craving the moral stature that comes with being oppressed.’” She found nothing of the kind; that is, no real inner searching. So those seeking and getting sex changes, especially the male-to-female candidates, did not seem to particularly value introspection. If anything, they were, like her father, quite the opposite, and viewed their former manhood as something to be banished from further consideration. They are women now, they say, the male portion of their lives has been expunged, for some never to be talked about again.
The author runs into a neo-fascist mob, the Magyar Garda, on the streets of Budapest in 2008, which seems to mimic the pre-World War 2 Arrow Cross organization, which helped in the destruction of two-thirds of a population of 850,000 Hungarian Jews. “One of every three people murdered in Auschwitz was a Hungarian Jew. The Hungarian Holocaust, its leading historian, Randolph L. Braham, concluded, was ‘the most concentrated and brutal ghettoization and deportation process of the Nazi’s Final Solution program.’”(p. 231)
“‘With the deepening crisis of assimilation in the late 19th century,’ Hungarian historian Viktor Karády wrote, ‘all forms of modern Jewish identity became saddled with some kind of psychic disturbance.’ Karády enumerated the symptoms of that disturbance: ‘an aversion’ to the past (what my father called ‘ancient history’); exhibitions of extreme self-hatred ‘invariably directed against “archaic” Jews who rejected “progress”’ (what my father called those ‘Orthodox Jews in their awful getup’); and ‘grotesque forms’ of compensatory behaviors, including maximal conformism in public and self-presentation,’ ‘imitating Christian traits that turned out to be utterly improbable, pointless or misplaced,’ and ‘proclamations of chauvinist bombast’ (or what my father would call being ‘100 percent Hungarian’). The impossible contradiction of self-denial and self-presentation led to a terrible irony. ‘The need to pay constant heed to fitting in,’ Karády wrote, ‘paradoxically drove those engaged in such strategies of concealment to an obsessional preoccupation with identity.’” (p. 235)
As I read more about the savage process of the Hungarian Shoah, I find I am slowing down. Nothing here can be skimmed. Rather my impulse is to memorize the sad statistics I have before me: “‘What was unique about the German regime in Hungary,’ Hungarian historian György Ránki observed, ‘was that a relatively large degree of national sovereignty was left in the hands of the [Hungarian] government....’ With only a handful of SS officers in the entire country, the Hungarian officialdom would seem to have been in an even stronger position to counter German edicts, but right from the start it chose otherwise. When the SS and Gestapo arrested hundreds of prominent and professional Jews in Budapest in the first two weeks of the occupation—and interned them in the rabbinical seminary building where my father had attended elementary school—neither the parliament nor Regent Horthy protested.... Eichmann was startled, if pleased, by the occupied state’s willingness, even enthusiasm. ‘Hungary was the only European country to encourage us relentlessly,’ he said later. ‘They were never satisfied with the rate of the deportations; no matter how much we speeded it up, they always found us too slow.’ He had no objections, of course: ‘Everything went like a dream.’” (p. 244)
The author includes a depiction, also unique in my reading life, of the feminized male Jew through the ages. Ponderous contrivances of hate such as Oskar Panizza’s The Operated Jew are described in which many doctors labor to transform Itzig Faitel, “‘a small squat man’ with a gimpy walk, a ‘cowardly’ voice, contorted spine and legs, and chest puffed up like a ‘chicken breast’” (p. 277) into a fabulous goy. Things go, as expected, terribly wrong. “As the 14th-century treatise by Italian encyclopedist and physician Cecco d’Ascoli asserted, ‘After the death of Christ, all Jewish men, like women, suffer menstruation.’” This is followed with the best explanation of that notorious collective hallucination, the “blood libel,” that I’ve ever read, Norman Cohn notwithstanding.
Wait until you get to the video of the father’s sex change. The intrepid journalist doesn’t shy from a complete if general description of the penectomy, labiaplasty, vaginoplasty etc. I’m not giving a sense of the full scope of the book; for there’s a recounting of the sweet life of the Magyar golden age, which ended with the Allied partition of Hungary in 1920, when it was reduced to about 28% of its prewar size; much evasion of Nazis in occupied Budapest; improbable but corroborated acts of heroism; trips through a postwar Europe in ruins; a lifelong fascination with filmmaking; an early pseudo-business in film distribution with school pals. Then it’s shipboard to Brazil for five years which feels like paradise to the young Faludi because of its near race-blindness, and then a move to the U.S.A. where he has a female love interest which doesn’t pan out. Eventually he goes to work for Condé Nast in New York as a darkroom technician, creating Photoshop-type magic before the Photoshop era. His penchant throughout his life for “faking things”—passes, letters of introduction, photos, certificates etc.—should not be minimized. The ultimate erasure, that of Stephanie’s penis, meant that she could no longer be made to drop trou as a way of having her “impure” Jewish blood confirmed. And yet in recent elections she voted for the fascist Fidesz party, which takes special pride in its hatred of Jews. What was it Santayana said?
This book holds up next to classics of parental biography like The Duke of Deception by Geoffrey Wolff. Narrative pleasures abound. The book tells many tales seamlessly and brilliantly.
August 21, 2016
When I became aware of Susan Faludi’s book about her estranged father, I placed a library reserve within minutes.
For years I wondered who Susan Faludi was. “Backlash” burst on the scene out of the blue. Faludi observed, documented and explained the often blatant, sometimes nuanced and sometimes silent forces that were undermining women as they were just starting to achieve. So while I chose this book to see if/how her family informed her writing, I got much more.
Through the biography of her brave, demanding, elusive, opinionated, talented and imposing father you get the story of Hungary before and after World War II. It is a story of a Jewish family that had wealth but not love. It is a story of the child they had and how he survived and never filled the hole they left. It is the story of an attempt to find equilibrium after years of life threatening uncertainty.
Her father was born István Friedman in 1927 in Hungary and died there as Stefánie Faludi in 2015. He ran, hid and outsmarted the Arrow Cross and Nazi overlords of Hungary in his youth. His survival skills and his skills in photography and film got him from Hungary to Denmark to Brazil and eventually to the NYC suburbs.
While his decision in his youth to become Steven Faludi is practical and clear; his decision in his 70’s to become Stefánie is not. Susan Faludi shares her experience in trying to understand her father as she, herself, learns about his life, both with and without his cooperation.
Some of my curiosity that brought me to this book has been partially filled in a way that gives more food for thought. Faludi remembers a hyper-masculine father (a mountain climber who violently defied restraining orders in divorce) and in 2004 sees him fussing over hair and clothing. As Stephanie, he does not recognize the forces that caused so much suffering to him, his family and his community.
I highly recommend it for anyone interested in Hungary, the Holocaust, post traumatic stress or identity.
For years I wondered who Susan Faludi was. “Backlash” burst on the scene out of the blue. Faludi observed, documented and explained the often blatant, sometimes nuanced and sometimes silent forces that were undermining women as they were just starting to achieve. So while I chose this book to see if/how her family informed her writing, I got much more.
Through the biography of her brave, demanding, elusive, opinionated, talented and imposing father you get the story of Hungary before and after World War II. It is a story of a Jewish family that had wealth but not love. It is a story of the child they had and how he survived and never filled the hole they left. It is the story of an attempt to find equilibrium after years of life threatening uncertainty.
Her father was born István Friedman in 1927 in Hungary and died there as Stefánie Faludi in 2015. He ran, hid and outsmarted the Arrow Cross and Nazi overlords of Hungary in his youth. His survival skills and his skills in photography and film got him from Hungary to Denmark to Brazil and eventually to the NYC suburbs.
While his decision in his youth to become Steven Faludi is practical and clear; his decision in his 70’s to become Stefánie is not. Susan Faludi shares her experience in trying to understand her father as she, herself, learns about his life, both with and without his cooperation.
Some of my curiosity that brought me to this book has been partially filled in a way that gives more food for thought. Faludi remembers a hyper-masculine father (a mountain climber who violently defied restraining orders in divorce) and in 2004 sees him fussing over hair and clothing. As Stephanie, he does not recognize the forces that caused so much suffering to him, his family and his community.
I highly recommend it for anyone interested in Hungary, the Holocaust, post traumatic stress or identity.
June 29, 2016
This is a phenomenal work of narrative/investigative journalism and personal inquiry -- I cannot recommend it highly enough. I saw a review recently that said this book might seem implausible if it had been presented as a work of fiction (a novel), and all the more incredible since it is true. I agree with that to a point, but I also think we have to pay attention to how intelligently and eloquently Susan Faludi assembled the present story with historical research, so that it becomes something even more profound and telling about human nature, tying her father's gender transition to the history of Hungarian Jews. There is so much here -- including one of our finest feminist writers/thinkers peeling back the very current subject of the transgender experience. The reporting and details are impeccable, but, as with Ta-Nehisi Coates's "Between the World and Me," the reader can also just marvel at how good the writing is. Faludi's style is exquisite, spare and powerful.
December 27, 2016
There is in the universe only one true divide, one real binary, life or death. Either you are living or you are not. Everything else is molten, malleable.
After not hearing from him for several years, Susan Faludi receives an email with the subject title “Changes” containing photographs of her father following gender reassignment surgery in Thailand. The author recalls her father as an aggressive and emotionally distant man and the news comes as something of a shock. In the ensuing years, the author speaks to and visits her father (now Stefánie) in a bid to understand *her better. Stefánie, a Jewish survivor of the Hungarian Holocaust, had moved from America to live once again in Hungary, and Faludi also considers *her identity as a Jew and as a Hungarian. The account is not only one of Stephen/ Stefánie’s identity but also that of the nation of Hungary, troubled by its past history and entering a time of political and social unrest, with anti-Semitism and homophobia on the rise.
“In the Darkroom” won the Kirkus Prize for Non-Fiction 2016 and I can see why. It is very well written and manages to be profoundly moving without being in any way sentimental or cloying. Highly recommended.
*As in the book, I have used the pronoun “he” to refer to Faludi’s father pre-surgery and “she” post-surgery. I admit this took some getting used to, as my brain kept stalling on the word "father" in conjunction with she/her!
After not hearing from him for several years, Susan Faludi receives an email with the subject title “Changes” containing photographs of her father following gender reassignment surgery in Thailand. The author recalls her father as an aggressive and emotionally distant man and the news comes as something of a shock. In the ensuing years, the author speaks to and visits her father (now Stefánie) in a bid to understand *her better. Stefánie, a Jewish survivor of the Hungarian Holocaust, had moved from America to live once again in Hungary, and Faludi also considers *her identity as a Jew and as a Hungarian. The account is not only one of Stephen/ Stefánie’s identity but also that of the nation of Hungary, troubled by its past history and entering a time of political and social unrest, with anti-Semitism and homophobia on the rise.
“In the Darkroom” won the Kirkus Prize for Non-Fiction 2016 and I can see why. It is very well written and manages to be profoundly moving without being in any way sentimental or cloying. Highly recommended.
*As in the book, I have used the pronoun “he” to refer to Faludi’s father pre-surgery and “she” post-surgery. I admit this took some getting used to, as my brain kept stalling on the word "father" in conjunction with she/her!
June 16, 2016
Author and feminist Susan Faludi has written a memoir, "In the Darkroom", about her father. This is not a simple, loving memoir about a beloved father, but rather about a father who seemingly was at war with the world, including the world of his family. Faludi's father, born in Budapest in 1927 as Istvan Friedman, and died in Budapest in 2015, reinvented as Stephanie Faludi. It was the life between the birth and death that Susan Faludi writes about.
Istvan Friedman seemed to be a man who lived a life with few "constants". Born of Jewish parents in inter-war Hungary, he was not close to his parents, though he rescued them in 1944 in Budapest when they had been taken by the Arrow Cross. After living through WW2, he touched down in Copenhagen and Brazil before settling in New York City, where he changed his name to Steven Faludi, married and raised a family in 50's, 60's, before being divorced in the mid-1970's. Susan's home life while growing up with him in the house was volatile, to say the least. Father and daughter split for many years after Susan became an adult and Steven moved back to Budapest. In 2004, she received an email saying that "Steven Faludi" was now "Stephanie Faludi" - her father had had a sex-change operation in Phuket, Thailand. In the years between 2004 and Stephanie's death, Susan and her father tried to understand each other. She spent time with him in Budapest, where the two wander the city as Susan attempted to recreate her father's life in understandable fashion.
From my reading of the memoir, Stephanie Faludi seemed to be a person in a lifelong search of his identity. Was he Jewish? He married a Jewish woman in a temple, but raised his two children without much Jewish knowledge; instead celebrating with a passion the major Christian holidays. Was he a man or a woman? Was he a Hungarian, despite the persecution Jews in Hungary had long endured? Even the title of the book, "In the Darkroom", which alludes to Steven Faludi's career in photography and to the Photoshop-like changes he was able to make to pictures, also seems to refer to the permutations he makes to his life.
Susan Faludi's book is about many things. Assimilation, the trans-gender movement, father-daughter relationships, even the history of Hungary. But most of all it is a story of a daughter trying to understand a father, who is trying to understand himself. It's a beautifully written book.
Istvan Friedman seemed to be a man who lived a life with few "constants". Born of Jewish parents in inter-war Hungary, he was not close to his parents, though he rescued them in 1944 in Budapest when they had been taken by the Arrow Cross. After living through WW2, he touched down in Copenhagen and Brazil before settling in New York City, where he changed his name to Steven Faludi, married and raised a family in 50's, 60's, before being divorced in the mid-1970's. Susan's home life while growing up with him in the house was volatile, to say the least. Father and daughter split for many years after Susan became an adult and Steven moved back to Budapest. In 2004, she received an email saying that "Steven Faludi" was now "Stephanie Faludi" - her father had had a sex-change operation in Phuket, Thailand. In the years between 2004 and Stephanie's death, Susan and her father tried to understand each other. She spent time with him in Budapest, where the two wander the city as Susan attempted to recreate her father's life in understandable fashion.
From my reading of the memoir, Stephanie Faludi seemed to be a person in a lifelong search of his identity. Was he Jewish? He married a Jewish woman in a temple, but raised his two children without much Jewish knowledge; instead celebrating with a passion the major Christian holidays. Was he a man or a woman? Was he a Hungarian, despite the persecution Jews in Hungary had long endured? Even the title of the book, "In the Darkroom", which alludes to Steven Faludi's career in photography and to the Photoshop-like changes he was able to make to pictures, also seems to refer to the permutations he makes to his life.
Susan Faludi's book is about many things. Assimilation, the trans-gender movement, father-daughter relationships, even the history of Hungary. But most of all it is a story of a daughter trying to understand a father, who is trying to understand himself. It's a beautifully written book.
September 25, 2016
Susan Faludi, American author and feminist offers us an expansive memoir/biography about her relationship with her estranged father. She had not seen him in 27 years when a card arrives announcing that he had become a woman. Susan visits him in her native Hungary, which begins a decade-long journey to understand the man who once hit her head against the floor.
The result is a clever non-linear telling of her father’s story peppered with long sections on Hungarian history, Nazi Germany, and transsexualism. I suspect she was trying to nail down all the facts when emotions occasionally escaped her. Faludi’s heart and book slowly warm to this new woman she calls Dad. I came to respect her curiosity, tenacity, loyalty and bravery,
The result is a clever non-linear telling of her father’s story peppered with long sections on Hungarian history, Nazi Germany, and transsexualism. I suspect she was trying to nail down all the facts when emotions occasionally escaped her. Faludi’s heart and book slowly warm to this new woman she calls Dad. I came to respect her curiosity, tenacity, loyalty and bravery,
October 13, 2019
review coming soon.
I read this awhile ago and forgot to review. It was really impressive.
It's reflective, sad and quite beautiful.
It is different then anything I have ever read. But it was a pleasure to read this book that is quite a beautiful tribute to her father. She is a very gifted writer and the words jump off the pages. I really liked this.
If you like non fiction and memoirs this is such a must read.
I read this awhile ago and forgot to review. It was really impressive.
It's reflective, sad and quite beautiful.
It is different then anything I have ever read. But it was a pleasure to read this book that is quite a beautiful tribute to her father. She is a very gifted writer and the words jump off the pages. I really liked this.
If you like non fiction and memoirs this is such a must read.
November 18, 2016
Truth is stranger than fiction. You couldn't make this up.
Both of those cliches apply to Susan Faludi's memoir of her father's life. As a lifelong crusader for women's rights and a leading feminist writer, it must have been a supreme irony for her to discover in 2004 that the father she had had no contact with for many years was no longer Steve but was now Stefanie having undergone a sex change operation. The book details her numerous subsequent trips to visit Steve/Stefanie in Budapest. But that is just one part of an even bigger story. By the end, what this book encompasses is an examination of the whole idea of identity summed up by her quote: "is identity what you choose or what you can't escape?"
But this is not just about gender identity. Her father's history as a Jew escaping the Nazis in Hungary during the war and now a jewish transgender person living In a modern Hungary with a new neo-fascist government is also an examination of religious, national and family identity. The title, 'In The Darkroom', refers to yet another irony - the fact that her father spent his working life in photographic studios as an expert on doctoring and cleaning up other people's photos.
In truth, you couldn't make it up.
Both of those cliches apply to Susan Faludi's memoir of her father's life. As a lifelong crusader for women's rights and a leading feminist writer, it must have been a supreme irony for her to discover in 2004 that the father she had had no contact with for many years was no longer Steve but was now Stefanie having undergone a sex change operation. The book details her numerous subsequent trips to visit Steve/Stefanie in Budapest. But that is just one part of an even bigger story. By the end, what this book encompasses is an examination of the whole idea of identity summed up by her quote: "is identity what you choose or what you can't escape?"
But this is not just about gender identity. Her father's history as a Jew escaping the Nazis in Hungary during the war and now a jewish transgender person living In a modern Hungary with a new neo-fascist government is also an examination of religious, national and family identity. The title, 'In The Darkroom', refers to yet another irony - the fact that her father spent his working life in photographic studios as an expert on doctoring and cleaning up other people's photos.
In truth, you couldn't make it up.
June 20, 2016
You couldn't make this up: Faludi, a terrific writer and serious thinker on feminism, gender and masculinity learns that her long-estranged and abusive father Steven is now Stefanie, a transgender woman who loves tea parties, men opening doors and being a 'lady' generally. Stefanie is living back in her native Hungary, where Susan goes to see if she can get to know her in a way she never knew her father as a man. Throw in the complicated history of Jews and anti-semitism in Hungary, lies, secrets and the problems of identity and you have a riveting memoir/biography/exploration of gender and sexuality that is unique and with its thriller-like narrative twists and turns, almost impossible to put down. I absolutely loved this book.
March 28, 2018
To doskonała wyprawa w poszukiwaniu wiedzy na temat tego, kim jesteśmy.
Zachwyci też z pewnością przeciwników takiego pana, któremu staje na myśl o tym, żeby w ramach określania polskiej tożsamości zrobić nam nad Wisłą drugi Budapeszt.
Zachwyci też z pewnością przeciwników takiego pana, któremu staje na myśl o tym, żeby w ramach określania polskiej tożsamości zrobić nam nad Wisłą drugi Budapeszt.
August 21, 2016
The premise of an author setting out to discover the father who had abandoned her and now has gone through a gender change makes for an interesting setting. But . . . The disjointed narrative - jumping around in time and lengthy historical passages - left me bewildered. I finished it just so I could say I did, but perhaps a more distant relative or a more astute editor would have made a significant improvement.
February 7, 2017
I can't finish this book. I gave it to 100 pages to pull me in and it didn't. I just can't emotionally attach to this book. It reads more like a history on Hungary and Budapest than a story about a father and a daughter. Everyone loves this book, and maybe it gets better, but I'm giving up.
April 19, 2020
Velmi narocne, ale aj velmi zaujimave a uprimne citanie. Susan Faludi prijima vyzvu napisat biografiu svojho otca ciastocne z pomsty. Nehovorili spolu uz 27 rokov a spomina si na neho ako na autokratickeho patriarchalneho tyrana - cestuju, kam chce on, jedia, co chce on, obliekaju sa, ako on chce. Ich posledny kontakt bol, ked agresivne napadol a vazne zranil noveho priatela svojej ex-manzelky. Po skoro troch desatrociach sa ozyva, aby dcera oznamil svoju nedavnu zmenu pohlavia, ktoru podstupil vo svojich 76tich rokoch. Ako si odcudzena dcera najde cestu k tomuto novemu, otravnemu rodicovi, co s vyraznym madarskym prizvukom natahuje slabiky, podporuje krajne pravicovy Fidesz, a nuti ju hodiny si prehliadat vlastne Photoshopom upravene fotky a kolekciu extravagantneho zenskeho oblecenia? Istvan / Steven / Stefanie je enigma. Jedinacik zo zamoznej zidovskej rodiny preziva svoje detstvo obklopeny natastajucim antisemitizmom. Pocas vojny unika a skryva sa nacistom, niekolkokrat im dokonca vdaka svojmu talentu vyzerat ako ina osoba prechadza cez rozum, podari sa mu pred deportaciou zachranit vlastnych rodicov, s ktorymi ale od konca vojny uz takmer neprehovori. Zije za ochrannym valom, za ktory je Susan schopna sa dostat len vdaka vlastnej vytrvalosti, otvorenosti, a asertivite. Neodsudzuje a neklasifikuje, ale tiez sa nevyhyba tazkym otazkam a temam. Tato kniha je sondou do temy identity - narodnej a kulturnej, etnickej a nabozenskej, osobnej ci genderovej. Nie som si ista, nakolko dava jasne odpovede, v kazdom pripade ale dava mnozstvo podnetov na zamyslenie sa.
October 13, 2016
Pulitzer Prize winner Susan Faludi writes her more personal work yet. In 2004 she receives an email that Steven Flaudi had transgendered to Stephanie, and that year she reached out to gain an understanding of the person she knew very little about, her father. As Stephanie's story unfolds, I kept thinking that you simply could not make this up. For Stephanie's entire life she managed to be, Zelig-like, at the heart of events. What a life this was -- were this filmed, it would be deemed too fantastic. There is much about his early life in Hungary (the pronoun shift is deliberate - Faludi does this consistently in the book). Born in 1927, he was witness to the Nazi occupation. In the 1950's, he spent time in the Amazon, then reinvented himself as a suburban husband and father, raising two children in New York. Even though this is Stephen/Stephanie's story, it is also Susan's, her search for identity and reconnection with a person who her mother continually took out restraining orders against and with whom she had lost contact for decades.
March 24, 2021
Čakala som priamočiary príbeh o tom, ako sa dcéra snaží pochopiť, prečo sa jej otec dal preoperovať na ženu. Dostala som však viac. Krízu identity tak hlbokú, až mi väčšinu času bolo pri čítaní ťažko. Jej odhalenie začína u Stevena, pokračuje k židovstvu, odtiaľ prejde na jeho rodné Maďarsko, až zakotví v USA.
Susan Faludi ako rodená Severoameričanka nemá na krajinu svojich predkov, Maďarsko, žiaden zromantizovaný pohľad. Študuje jej minulosť a minulosť židovského otca s vedeckou precíznosťou a detailnosťou. Dáva do súvisu mnoho vecí, na ktoré sa človek pozerá oddelene a prepája tak históriu s prítomnosťou. Má to však ťažké, lebo jej otec, po premene Stéfanie, nerád spomína na obdobie druhej svetovej vojny. Iba občas jej poskytne pohľad do svojej mladosti. Susan je tak nútená kontaktovať rodinu, ktorú nikdy nevidela a osoby, čo by jej mohli aspoň trochu objasniť osud jej rodiny. Niekedy však bolo historických faktov priveľa na úkor príbehu.
Osobne mi Steven/Stéfanie nebola sympatická a jej premenu som skôr považovala za pózu. Sama Susan (a aj iné osoby, ktoré podstúpili premenu) sa pri nej necítili komfortne. Ženskosť v jej podaní bola príliš vyumelkovaná a prehnaná, niekedy až odporovala tomu, o čo sa snažia feministky.
"Teraz, keď som dáma...Muži mi musia pomáhať. Ja nepohnem ani prstom."
"(Stéfanie) Vstala a začala zbierať taniere. -Späť do kuchyne!- zatrilkovala, keď vychádzala z izby. -Na to pravé miesto pre ženy!-"
Ku koncu sa všetko vyjasňuje a dáva dokopy, pričom nám Susan pred očami poskladá tragickú mozaiku celej jednej rodiny, komunity a krajiny.
"Celý svoj život sa snažil prísť na to, kým je. Žid či kresťan? Maďar či Američan? Žena či muž? Toľko protikladov. No ... pomyslela som si, že vo vesmíre existuje iba jeden skutočný protiklad: život a smrť. Človek buď žije, alebo nie. Všetko ostatné je tvárne a poddajné."
Prekladať knihu muselo byť veľmi náročné, keďže maďarčina nemá rodovo odlíšené zámená, angličtina nejaký ten neutrálny tón znesie, no slovenčina je silne rodovo založená. Napriek tomu sa z textu dal veľmi dobre vycítiť zámer a posolstvo autorky.
Susan Faludi ako rodená Severoameričanka nemá na krajinu svojich predkov, Maďarsko, žiaden zromantizovaný pohľad. Študuje jej minulosť a minulosť židovského otca s vedeckou precíznosťou a detailnosťou. Dáva do súvisu mnoho vecí, na ktoré sa človek pozerá oddelene a prepája tak históriu s prítomnosťou. Má to však ťažké, lebo jej otec, po premene Stéfanie, nerád spomína na obdobie druhej svetovej vojny. Iba občas jej poskytne pohľad do svojej mladosti. Susan je tak nútená kontaktovať rodinu, ktorú nikdy nevidela a osoby, čo by jej mohli aspoň trochu objasniť osud jej rodiny. Niekedy však bolo historických faktov priveľa na úkor príbehu.
Osobne mi Steven/Stéfanie nebola sympatická a jej premenu som skôr považovala za pózu. Sama Susan (a aj iné osoby, ktoré podstúpili premenu) sa pri nej necítili komfortne. Ženskosť v jej podaní bola príliš vyumelkovaná a prehnaná, niekedy až odporovala tomu, o čo sa snažia feministky.
"Teraz, keď som dáma...Muži mi musia pomáhať. Ja nepohnem ani prstom."
"(Stéfanie) Vstala a začala zbierať taniere. -Späť do kuchyne!- zatrilkovala, keď vychádzala z izby. -Na to pravé miesto pre ženy!-"
Ku koncu sa všetko vyjasňuje a dáva dokopy, pričom nám Susan pred očami poskladá tragickú mozaiku celej jednej rodiny, komunity a krajiny.
"Celý svoj život sa snažil prísť na to, kým je. Žid či kresťan? Maďar či Američan? Žena či muž? Toľko protikladov. No ... pomyslela som si, že vo vesmíre existuje iba jeden skutočný protiklad: život a smrť. Človek buď žije, alebo nie. Všetko ostatné je tvárne a poddajné."
Prekladať knihu muselo byť veľmi náročné, keďže maďarčina nemá rodovo odlíšené zámená, angličtina nejaký ten neutrálny tón znesie, no slovenčina je silne rodovo založená. Napriek tomu sa z textu dal veľmi dobre vycítiť zámer a posolstvo autorky.
July 12, 2016
I wanted to understand transexuality better and thought this memoir of Susan Faludi's father's transition from man to woman at 62 would be interesting as well as informative. Faludi makes sure to keep us aware that her Hungarian born father speaks with an accent (which is off-putting more than charming) and endlessly describes her flapping purse, high heels and frilly aprons. But she never gets near the man or the woman so neither do we. The physical transition is pretty boring, the emotional imperative fascinating but she can't catch it. I had a very hard time seeing her as anything but a drag queen and I don't think she looked like one.
In the end, I learned way too much about WWII and almost nothing about why people change gender. Susan may have learned about her father but didn't make him human enough for me to care.
In the end, I learned way too much about WWII and almost nothing about why people change gender. Susan may have learned about her father but didn't make him human enough for me to care.
October 30, 2016
I can't get beyond the transphobia in this one. A "big reveal" is that one therapist thinks her parent is uncertain about transition, and it disturbs me there is no analysis about that. Also the whole "my father" ten times every page is extremely jarring. I know that is what Stefi decided she was to Susan and also I know it does not need to be used as often as it was. I get that she has a complex and often negative relationship with her parent but to center around the gender transition is not cool. Also, I have no idea how to pronounce "waaaal" seems to happen in every other word.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 17, 2017
A Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist documents her reactions to her Hungarian father's transition from a male to a female. His bizarre personality is overwhelmingly unhinged, and I finally stopped caring about the latest revelation of his behavior. Well-written, but I did not finish this one - there are too many other good books waiting on my nightstand.
July 8, 2016
An intricate, tensile-structure of a book.
Susan Faludi has written (some of?) the best long-form journalism of the last quarter century. This is her fourth book, and the most personal. Shortly after the turn of the 21st century she reconnected with her long-estranged father, a Hungarian emigre' and holocaust-survivor who had returned to Hungary after the Fall of the Berlin Wall and was undergoing sex reassignment surgery.
Over the course of the 400+ pages of this book, Faludi flips back and forth through her father's life, eventually considering his boyhood as a Hungarian Jew, her impossibly ballsy acts during World War II, surviving his own divorced parents, his similarly bravado escape from communist East Europe to Brazil, and move to America, where he married and had a family. Steven Faludi--an assumed name--was a mountaineer, linguist of accomplishment, and, most importantly, photographer, intrigued by physical appearances and their manipulation.
He was also an enigma to his daughter. Quiet about so much that mattered to her, given to lectures, inscrutably annoying, and, ultimately, violent--leading to a divorce and estrangement in the 1970s. And he continued to be a puzzle, his sex change taking her off guard, and confusing her, in some ways, to the very end of his life and this book.
Interleaved with this personal story is a history of Hungary, especially in relations to its Jewish population. As anyone familiar with holocaust literature knows, Hungary was especially fervent to destroy the Jews who lived within its borders--Jews who had once lived a relatively assimilated life, but were then blamed for the country's dismemberment after the Great War. She continues the story to the near-present, with the return of a reactionary, anti-Semitic right in control of the nation's politics--a movement that Stefanie Faludi, as she renamed herself, was quite comfortable with, as he had never been very comfortable with his own Judaism. (In Faludi's account, this uneasiness was shared by the nation's co-religionists.)
The story is intricately structured, eschewing a chronological account for something more subtle: neither following Steven-Stefanie's life, nor the course of Susan's investigation, but dipping back here and there. The organizing principles are those tensile structures--a series of opposites. At the heart are questions of identity: is identity something we embrace, create, escape--or is something we cannot resist? What does transsexuality mean for binary gender roles--does it break them down or reinforce them? Is Judaism something one can resist, or something that is attributed? Are nations bundles of peoples and land--or collections of myths?
The set of oppositions cuts close to home. In looking at her father, Faludi necessarily has to examine her own family and life--but she is clearly more comfortable on the other side of the tape recorder, asking the questions, not revealing, and it is clear that she is pulling back here, keeping from revealing too much.
Ultimately arranging these opposing forces into a möbius strip serves Faludi well. She builds to a climax, but that movement is hard to detect, and it is never quite clear *how* she made the peace with her father, as opposed to recognizing that she did.
But perhaps that's a deficiency of my reading. I preferred the alternating narrative form here because I found her father's persona very unpleasant. For all that Faludi unveiled some of the props to that persona, and some of the reasons he hewed so closely to it, he still came across as a self-centered jerk, until the very end. (It seems that Faludi just stopped reporting on his more unpleasant behaviors, rather than them stopping.) Still, he went through a great deal of transformations--he was on hormones!, he dressed as a woman!, he traveled to Thailand and paid thousands of dollars to undergo irreversible sex reassignment surgery! But he could barely manage to reach out to his daughter, barely manage to see beyond his own needs.
Oddly, then, even flashes to some of Europe's worst historical moments came as something of a relief. It broke from the closeness of a single asshole and took in a larger view . . . of assholes, yes, but at least there was some room to breathe.
But however one sees the father at the heart of this narrative, the organization and details remain exciting. The narrative stays tense, because it's never quite clear where she'll go next. It allows her for more poetic expression than I remember in any of her other works--drawing a parallel, for example, between the dismemberment of Hungary and her father's change.
It is a fabulous and thought provoking exploration.
Susan Faludi has written (some of?) the best long-form journalism of the last quarter century. This is her fourth book, and the most personal. Shortly after the turn of the 21st century she reconnected with her long-estranged father, a Hungarian emigre' and holocaust-survivor who had returned to Hungary after the Fall of the Berlin Wall and was undergoing sex reassignment surgery.
Over the course of the 400+ pages of this book, Faludi flips back and forth through her father's life, eventually considering his boyhood as a Hungarian Jew, her impossibly ballsy acts during World War II, surviving his own divorced parents, his similarly bravado escape from communist East Europe to Brazil, and move to America, where he married and had a family. Steven Faludi--an assumed name--was a mountaineer, linguist of accomplishment, and, most importantly, photographer, intrigued by physical appearances and their manipulation.
He was also an enigma to his daughter. Quiet about so much that mattered to her, given to lectures, inscrutably annoying, and, ultimately, violent--leading to a divorce and estrangement in the 1970s. And he continued to be a puzzle, his sex change taking her off guard, and confusing her, in some ways, to the very end of his life and this book.
Interleaved with this personal story is a history of Hungary, especially in relations to its Jewish population. As anyone familiar with holocaust literature knows, Hungary was especially fervent to destroy the Jews who lived within its borders--Jews who had once lived a relatively assimilated life, but were then blamed for the country's dismemberment after the Great War. She continues the story to the near-present, with the return of a reactionary, anti-Semitic right in control of the nation's politics--a movement that Stefanie Faludi, as she renamed herself, was quite comfortable with, as he had never been very comfortable with his own Judaism. (In Faludi's account, this uneasiness was shared by the nation's co-religionists.)
The story is intricately structured, eschewing a chronological account for something more subtle: neither following Steven-Stefanie's life, nor the course of Susan's investigation, but dipping back here and there. The organizing principles are those tensile structures--a series of opposites. At the heart are questions of identity: is identity something we embrace, create, escape--or is something we cannot resist? What does transsexuality mean for binary gender roles--does it break them down or reinforce them? Is Judaism something one can resist, or something that is attributed? Are nations bundles of peoples and land--or collections of myths?
The set of oppositions cuts close to home. In looking at her father, Faludi necessarily has to examine her own family and life--but she is clearly more comfortable on the other side of the tape recorder, asking the questions, not revealing, and it is clear that she is pulling back here, keeping from revealing too much.
Ultimately arranging these opposing forces into a möbius strip serves Faludi well. She builds to a climax, but that movement is hard to detect, and it is never quite clear *how* she made the peace with her father, as opposed to recognizing that she did.
But perhaps that's a deficiency of my reading. I preferred the alternating narrative form here because I found her father's persona very unpleasant. For all that Faludi unveiled some of the props to that persona, and some of the reasons he hewed so closely to it, he still came across as a self-centered jerk, until the very end. (It seems that Faludi just stopped reporting on his more unpleasant behaviors, rather than them stopping.) Still, he went through a great deal of transformations--he was on hormones!, he dressed as a woman!, he traveled to Thailand and paid thousands of dollars to undergo irreversible sex reassignment surgery! But he could barely manage to reach out to his daughter, barely manage to see beyond his own needs.
Oddly, then, even flashes to some of Europe's worst historical moments came as something of a relief. It broke from the closeness of a single asshole and took in a larger view . . . of assholes, yes, but at least there was some room to breathe.
But however one sees the father at the heart of this narrative, the organization and details remain exciting. The narrative stays tense, because it's never quite clear where she'll go next. It allows her for more poetic expression than I remember in any of her other works--drawing a parallel, for example, between the dismemberment of Hungary and her father's change.
It is a fabulous and thought provoking exploration.
November 21, 2021
A remarkable exploration of identity - gender, national, religious and other.
What are the chances that the father of a noted feminist scholar will decide to fly to Thailand for gender reassignment surgeries? That she will do so skipping over the psychiatric and medical therapies that typically precede surgery? That she will do so without sharing her gender dysmorphia, or her surgical plan with anyone in advance? And if you are a feminist scholar how do you respond when your father embraces a binary view of gender, declares that she is a woman and then behaves in accord with ridiculous stereotypes about what it means to be a woman, being submissive and matching your shoes to your purse and waiting for men to open doors? These things are of course entirely performative and have nothing to do with what it means to be a woman. But that leads to the question "what does it mean to be a woman?"
It turns out though that this is only the very tip of the iceberg in this exploration of identity. Faludi's father was a Hungarian Jew in the 1930's and 40's. He hid by passing as a member of what was essentially the Hungarian Gestapo while his neighbors and classmates were murdered all around him. Faludi's father then fled, first to Brazil and then to the US, and decided he was not a Jew. He immersed himself in regular listening to all the 1970s and 80's televangelists, placing the biggest star on the block on the family's Christmas tree right in the front window of their home. And then Faludi's father, in his later years after his divorce, returned to his native Hungary. After a time went to Thailand and had MtF gender conforming surgeries and began identifying female. She then returned to Hungary where she disparaged Jews and supported a far right anti-semetic and anti-LGBTQ+ strongmen. She proclaimed often and intensely that she was not a Jew she was a Hungarian and she was not trans she was a woman. After all her paperwork says so. Faludi's journey, amidst all of this, to explore the meaning and structure of identity is illuminating and fascinating.
Faludi does this while also navigating her identity as a daughter to this very difficult parent. Stephanie is narcististic and cruel, likely dealing with PTSD (which she denies.) She walks all over everyone. She also abused Faludi's mother and tried to stab to death her mother's boyfriend (they were long separated and embroiled in a a protracted divorce.) It is a lot to unpack, but Faludi does it masterfully. She explores the personal while also keeping the narrative focused on the larger truths and lessons. There is a good deal of discussion of Erik Erikson's theory (he himself a self-denying Jew who changed his name to the most Aryan possible construction) that when we feel the loss of identity we are drawn to things certain and brutal, that we build new identity around pegs like racism and anti-Semitism. (In the book this discussion is focused on Hungary, but it applies everywhere and it resonated with me, especially in light of the 2016 election, Charlottesville, and the coup attempt on the Capitol.)
I recommend this book for everyone. It is truly extraordinary, and provides a structure to think about that most universal of subjective truths, identity.
What are the chances that the father of a noted feminist scholar will decide to fly to Thailand for gender reassignment surgeries? That she will do so skipping over the psychiatric and medical therapies that typically precede surgery? That she will do so without sharing her gender dysmorphia, or her surgical plan with anyone in advance? And if you are a feminist scholar how do you respond when your father embraces a binary view of gender, declares that she is a woman and then behaves in accord with ridiculous stereotypes about what it means to be a woman, being submissive and matching your shoes to your purse and waiting for men to open doors? These things are of course entirely performative and have nothing to do with what it means to be a woman. But that leads to the question "what does it mean to be a woman?"
It turns out though that this is only the very tip of the iceberg in this exploration of identity. Faludi's father was a Hungarian Jew in the 1930's and 40's. He hid by passing as a member of what was essentially the Hungarian Gestapo while his neighbors and classmates were murdered all around him. Faludi's father then fled, first to Brazil and then to the US, and decided he was not a Jew. He immersed himself in regular listening to all the 1970s and 80's televangelists, placing the biggest star on the block on the family's Christmas tree right in the front window of their home. And then Faludi's father, in his later years after his divorce, returned to his native Hungary. After a time went to Thailand and had MtF gender conforming surgeries and began identifying female. She then returned to Hungary where she disparaged Jews and supported a far right anti-semetic and anti-LGBTQ+ strongmen. She proclaimed often and intensely that she was not a Jew she was a Hungarian and she was not trans she was a woman. After all her paperwork says so. Faludi's journey, amidst all of this, to explore the meaning and structure of identity is illuminating and fascinating.
Faludi does this while also navigating her identity as a daughter to this very difficult parent. Stephanie is narcististic and cruel, likely dealing with PTSD (which she denies.) She walks all over everyone. She also abused Faludi's mother and tried to stab to death her mother's boyfriend (they were long separated and embroiled in a a protracted divorce.) It is a lot to unpack, but Faludi does it masterfully. She explores the personal while also keeping the narrative focused on the larger truths and lessons. There is a good deal of discussion of Erik Erikson's theory (he himself a self-denying Jew who changed his name to the most Aryan possible construction) that when we feel the loss of identity we are drawn to things certain and brutal, that we build new identity around pegs like racism and anti-Semitism. (In the book this discussion is focused on Hungary, but it applies everywhere and it resonated with me, especially in light of the 2016 election, Charlottesville, and the coup attempt on the Capitol.)
I recommend this book for everyone. It is truly extraordinary, and provides a structure to think about that most universal of subjective truths, identity.
April 13, 2018
Susan Faludi has been has an award winning journalist, has written an acclaimed feminist nonfiction work, Backlash, and is an all around intelligent woman. I knew the name but not much else. Thanks to my reading group, The Bookie Babes, I have now read her.
In the Darkroom is part memoir, part inquiry into the meaning of identity, part Hungarian history. Some of the reading group members found it overstuffed and I can't disagree. I also however found it moving as a memoir, thoughtful as to gender identity, and informative on Hungarian history.
Susan Faludi had an unhappy childhood, thanks to her father. He was moody, overbearing, and violent at times. He left her and her mother when Susan was a teen, leaving her with harbored resentment, grievances and hurt for many years. When she learned that he had undergone sex reassignment surgery at the age of 76, she began an investigation into his life. Though her father had been a successful photographer for the fashion and magazine industry in New York, he had returned to Budapest, Hungary, the city of his birth. Though the parent and daughter had maintained a relationship and correspondence, it was strained to say the least.
Many visits to Hungary ensued. Susan took a dual role as daughter and investigative reporter and gradually brought the hidden life of her now female father into view, much the way he had developed pictures in his darkroom. During those visits, it was most unsettling to read sentences like, "My father, she..." Also interesting to learn that Hungarian has no gender specific pronouns!
Though the story contains many emotions, the underlying theme is tragedy due to the horrific circumstances of the senior Faludi's childhood in Hungary under the Nazis and then under Communism. Even to this day the country is a political mess and antisemitism is rife. Susan's father was born Jewish but learned to survive by subterfuge and the ability to assume different identities.
The book is necessarily in part a study of the transgender phenomenon primarily through the views of psychiatry and medicine. I found that the least convincing aspect of the story. Her research seemed well done but came across as dry theories, not all of them credible to me. When she finally wove the whole tapestry together, the issues of identity, gender, war, loss and survival as played out in the life of one Jewish man who chose to become a woman, it developed into a deeply moving and personal story.
Take a chance on a book, as we say in the Bookie Babes.
October 10, 2022
"Teraz, ked som dama, mi Bader vsetko opravi. Muzi mi musia pomahat, ja nepohnem ani prstom. To je jedna z velkych vyhod, ked si zena. Ty stale pises, ake su zeny znevyhodnene, ale ja som zatial narazila na same vyhody!
Zasla som, ako otcova nova identita tancovala s tou starou, jej snaha odtrhnut sa od minulosti spolupracovala s pokusom o zmier s vlastnou historiou.”
Susan Faludi, americka spisovatelka, novinarka, feministka (precitajte si Backlash), mala tazke detstvo. Jej otec nedovolil matke pracovat, ked ho opustila, prenasledoval ju, napadol jej noveho partnera, nasilnicky a kontrolujuco sa spraval aj k Susan. Potom sa ich vztahy prerusili, az kym v roku 2004 nedostala od otca email, v ktorom jej oznamoval, ze vo veku 76 rokov presiel tranziciou a je z neho zena - Stefanie.
Azda to bol skor novinarsky instinkt nez rodinne puto, co ju priviedlo do Budapesti otca navstivit - Stefanie suhlasi, ze o nom/nej Susan napise knihu, no pred otazkami na minulost unika, zatvara sa, radsej hovori o sminkach, satach, robi zo seba koketnu damu v rokoch (a posobi, ze si to uplne uziva).
Postupne sa vsak otvara a Susan sklada criepky otcovho komplikovaneho osudu: takmer cela rodina zahynula pocas holokaustu, dospievajuci Istvan prezil skryvajuc sa v budapestianskom gete, obcas sa prezliekajuc do uniformy fasistickych Sipovych krizov v duchu hesla "pod lampou je najvacsia tma".
Armchair psychologist by povedal, ze aj jeho prevlek do zenskych siat je najma pokusom utiect pred traumatickym detstvom a snahou urobit hrubu ciaru za nasilnickymi sklonmi machistickeho muza. Miesto ospravedlnenia povedat "it wasn't me". Minister jednej stredoeuropskej krajiny by zas pouzil tuto prefikanu tranziciu ako zamienku na kriziacku vypravu proti trans ludom.
Susan Faludi vsak brilantne kombinuje novinarku a dceru, nic neprikrasluje, no s laskavostou odkryva bolestivu rodinnu historiu. Viac ako rozuzlenie, ci bola Stefanie "legit" trans zena, vas zaujima, ci si k sebe s odcudzenou dcerou najdu cestu.
Fantasticka kniha v skvelom preklade Lucie Halovej, ktora sa vyhrala s gramatickymi rodmi (ktore v anglictine a v madarcine funguju uplne inak ako v slovencine). Jej jedina chyba je, ze som ju necitala pocas velkonocneho vyletu v Budapesti, precitila by som ju este viac.
"To, kym ste, je to, co zo seba robite, ja, do ktoreho sa stylizujete, alebo je to dane dedicnostou a jej osudovymi silami: genetikou, rodinou, etnikom, nabozenstvom, kulturou, historiou? Inymi slovami, je identita nieco, co si zvolite, alebo nieco, pred cim neuniknete?"
Zasla som, ako otcova nova identita tancovala s tou starou, jej snaha odtrhnut sa od minulosti spolupracovala s pokusom o zmier s vlastnou historiou.”
Susan Faludi, americka spisovatelka, novinarka, feministka (precitajte si Backlash), mala tazke detstvo. Jej otec nedovolil matke pracovat, ked ho opustila, prenasledoval ju, napadol jej noveho partnera, nasilnicky a kontrolujuco sa spraval aj k Susan. Potom sa ich vztahy prerusili, az kym v roku 2004 nedostala od otca email, v ktorom jej oznamoval, ze vo veku 76 rokov presiel tranziciou a je z neho zena - Stefanie.
Azda to bol skor novinarsky instinkt nez rodinne puto, co ju priviedlo do Budapesti otca navstivit - Stefanie suhlasi, ze o nom/nej Susan napise knihu, no pred otazkami na minulost unika, zatvara sa, radsej hovori o sminkach, satach, robi zo seba koketnu damu v rokoch (a posobi, ze si to uplne uziva).
Postupne sa vsak otvara a Susan sklada criepky otcovho komplikovaneho osudu: takmer cela rodina zahynula pocas holokaustu, dospievajuci Istvan prezil skryvajuc sa v budapestianskom gete, obcas sa prezliekajuc do uniformy fasistickych Sipovych krizov v duchu hesla "pod lampou je najvacsia tma".
Armchair psychologist by povedal, ze aj jeho prevlek do zenskych siat je najma pokusom utiect pred traumatickym detstvom a snahou urobit hrubu ciaru za nasilnickymi sklonmi machistickeho muza. Miesto ospravedlnenia povedat "it wasn't me". Minister jednej stredoeuropskej krajiny by zas pouzil tuto prefikanu tranziciu ako zamienku na kriziacku vypravu proti trans ludom.
Susan Faludi vsak brilantne kombinuje novinarku a dceru, nic neprikrasluje, no s laskavostou odkryva bolestivu rodinnu historiu. Viac ako rozuzlenie, ci bola Stefanie "legit" trans zena, vas zaujima, ci si k sebe s odcudzenou dcerou najdu cestu.
Fantasticka kniha v skvelom preklade Lucie Halovej, ktora sa vyhrala s gramatickymi rodmi (ktore v anglictine a v madarcine funguju uplne inak ako v slovencine). Jej jedina chyba je, ze som ju necitala pocas velkonocneho vyletu v Budapesti, precitila by som ju este viac.
"To, kym ste, je to, co zo seba robite, ja, do ktoreho sa stylizujete, alebo je to dane dedicnostou a jej osudovymi silami: genetikou, rodinou, etnikom, nabozenstvom, kulturou, historiou? Inymi slovami, je identita nieco, co si zvolite, alebo nieco, pred cim neuniknete?"
April 2, 2023
a wonderfully complicated book about a wonderfully complicated individual. faludi doesn't shy away from the disturbing or difficult aspects of reckoning with her father's many transformations across a lifetime. there are no neat conclusions and the book undoubtedly won't suit the gender ideologues, but any compromising or sanitising such a personal family history would have been an insult to all involved. so much respect for her for not having done so.
December 31, 2016
What a remarkable book, on so many levels. First and foremost, In the Darkroom is the renowned feminist author and reporter Susan Faludi's portrait of her father who, among the many interesting things about him, contacted her after decades of estrangement, when he was 74, to say that he had undergone a sex change operation, and was now a woman. And so Faludi travels to Hungary--her family's native land--to visit her dad, who now goes by Stefani. Turns out she's pretty insufferable, Stefani--petty, tedious, self-hating, self-aggrandizing--and was even worse when Faludi was growing up, an angry man (then Stephen) who held the household hostage with his temper and tyrannical behavior.
But that's just the beginning! Over the course of many years and trips to Hungary, Faludi learns more and more about her father's past and present, including several astonishing "adventures" during during the Nazi occupation (the family is Jewish) of World War Two. And this thread allows Faludi to remind us of Hungary's repugnant history as one of Europe's most rabid, systemically anti-Semitic countries, where the fascists have reared their cowardly, hateful heads once again in the 21st century. The direct parallels between Hungary's politics and national mood this past decade and America's this past year are alarming, to the say the least. For this reason alone, In the Darkroom warrants close reading, as a detailed record of a country going to the literal Nazis.
The third major theme here is just as compelling, as Faludi takes a long look at the nature of personal identity, mostly gender and religious (and, specifically, what it means to be a Jew), as well as the identity of communities and nations. Do we define ourselves by what we are, or what we are not? And how do we justify our past, or our present, as both of those change over the course of a lifetime?
Anyway, Faludi's pretty brilliant, a good storyteller and an exceptionally organized thinker. This was one of my favorite non-fiction books of the year.
But that's just the beginning! Over the course of many years and trips to Hungary, Faludi learns more and more about her father's past and present, including several astonishing "adventures" during during the Nazi occupation (the family is Jewish) of World War Two. And this thread allows Faludi to remind us of Hungary's repugnant history as one of Europe's most rabid, systemically anti-Semitic countries, where the fascists have reared their cowardly, hateful heads once again in the 21st century. The direct parallels between Hungary's politics and national mood this past decade and America's this past year are alarming, to the say the least. For this reason alone, In the Darkroom warrants close reading, as a detailed record of a country going to the literal Nazis.
The third major theme here is just as compelling, as Faludi takes a long look at the nature of personal identity, mostly gender and religious (and, specifically, what it means to be a Jew), as well as the identity of communities and nations. Do we define ourselves by what we are, or what we are not? And how do we justify our past, or our present, as both of those change over the course of a lifetime?
Anyway, Faludi's pretty brilliant, a good storyteller and an exceptionally organized thinker. This was one of my favorite non-fiction books of the year.
July 31, 2016
I love Susan Faludi's other books, specifically Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man and The Terror Dream: Fear and Fantasy in Post-9/11 America so I wanted to read this before I really knew anything about it. It seems almost crazy, a person known for writing long form journalistic books about gender, and who wrote one of the most engaging books I've ever read on American masculinity in the post-war period has a father she hasn't spoken to in 25 years randomly email her and announce that he has undergone sex reassignment surgery and is now living as a woman. This book is part memoir, part history, constructed as Faludi spent the next decade trying to repair her relationship with her father. Her father, Stefanie, is inscrutable and impossible to pin down. Stefanie is also a Hungarian Jew who survived the Holocaust, depending on which story is to be believed, on a combination of luck, daring, bravery and convincing role-playing. Faludi weaves her father's story in with the history of Hungary, especially the Hungarian Jewery, around questions of identity, gender and religion. It is a beautiful and haunting book.
May 28, 2017
Susan Faludi's "Backlash" had a fair amount of influence on my teenage self, so knowing who she is piqued my interest in regards to this book. It's deeply personal and quite interesting as a memoir too. The book is really about her father, an elusive and abusive man she lost touch with.
When Susan started trying to reestablish their relationship her father was no longer a man, but had undergone sex reassignment surgery. The book explores this and I got a few more insights that hadn't occurred to me before - that people would lie to their psychologists to get an irreversible procedure.
Susan's father was a Hungarian and a Jew. He managed to evade the holocaust. This part is quite interesting, but Stephanie didn't want to talk about this.
Susan also explores Hungarian nationalism and it's myths. It's quite interesting how the past has been tweaked to suit the picture that people want to present.
This is a book of identity, national and personal. The wish and tendency to rewrite and gloss over. Fascinating, but perplexing. If you can't accept your own flaws, you can't get over yourself and grow.
When Susan started trying to reestablish their relationship her father was no longer a man, but had undergone sex reassignment surgery. The book explores this and I got a few more insights that hadn't occurred to me before - that people would lie to their psychologists to get an irreversible procedure.
Susan's father was a Hungarian and a Jew. He managed to evade the holocaust. This part is quite interesting, but Stephanie didn't want to talk about this.
Susan also explores Hungarian nationalism and it's myths. It's quite interesting how the past has been tweaked to suit the picture that people want to present.
This is a book of identity, national and personal. The wish and tendency to rewrite and gloss over. Fascinating, but perplexing. If you can't accept your own flaws, you can't get over yourself and grow.
September 18, 2019
I had the impression while reading this that the author should have written a different version of the story. She ended up with a book about shifting identity as embodied in her father, a Jewish, Hungarian, holocaust survivor, and a trans woman (Stefi). The author presents all this painstaking research about transsexuals and Hungarian history (particularly during WWII) and Stefi's family and experiences (which Stefi is particularly withholding about). But it's also clear from the stories the author tells about her own childhood and experiences with Stefi that the author is profoundly angry with her. The research the author presents seems tailored for contradicting Stefi's image of herself. I was especially uncomfortable with her "findings" on trans folks that suggest transsexuals are mentally ill or severely misguided. It felt like she was using the research as a cudgel. Instead of all the studies and historical documents, it seems like she should have just told us (and Stefi) straight out how mad she was at her.
April 23, 2017
A fulfilling dual memoir: Susan Faludi writes about her transgender father's life and how she (Faludi's father before the decision to identify publicly as a woman) crafted her own persona as survival mechanism during the Holocaust. It's also a history of Hungary and its cruel treatment and eradication of its Jewish citizens throughout the lead-up and duration of World War II, and of the resurgence of violence spurred by homophobia and Antisemitism in the present. The psychology of identity, both as mob-think and self-expression of gender, are the book's focus. But familial memory and forgiveness are central, as well.
There's much to parse in this sometimes infuriating relationship between father and daughter, who were estranged for many years and reconciled late in Faludi's middle age. The political becomes personal and shapes the lives of everyone involved.
There's much to parse in this sometimes infuriating relationship between father and daughter, who were estranged for many years and reconciled late in Faludi's middle age. The political becomes personal and shapes the lives of everyone involved.
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