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She's Not There : A Life in Two Genders | 
| Author: Jennifer Finney Boylan
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $8.03
You Save: $16.92 (68%)
Rating:  79 reviews
Sales Rank: 169334
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1st
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.4 x 0.9
ASIN: B0002XZVDG
Publication Date: June 30, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
The exuberant memoir of a man named James who became a woman named Jenny. She’s Not There is the story of a person changing genders, the story of a person bearing and finally revealing a complex secret; above all, it is a love story.
By turns funny and deeply moving, Jennifer Finney Boylan explores the remarkable territory that lies between men and women, examines changing friendships, and rejoices in the redeeming power of family. She’s Not There is a portrait of a loving marriage—the love of James for his wife, Grace, and, against all odds, the enduring love of Grace for the woman who becomes her “sister,” Jenny.
To this extraordinary true story, Boylan brings the humorous, fresh voice that won her accolades as one of the best comic novelists of her generation. With her distinctive and winning perspective, She’s Not There explores the dramatic outward changes and unexpected results of life as a woman: Jenny fights the urge to eat salad, while James consumed plates of ribs; gone is the stability of “one damn mood, all the damn time.”
While Boylan’s own secret was unusual, to say the least, she captures the universal sense of feeling uncomfortable, out of sorts with the world, and misunderstood by her peers. Jenny is supported on her journey by her best friend, novelist Richard Russo, who goes from begging his friend to “Be a man” (in every sense of the word) to accepting her as an attractive, buoyant woman. “The most unexpected thing,” Russo writes in his Afterword to the book, “is in how Jenny’s story we recognize our shared humanity.”
As James evolves into Jennifer in scenes that are by turns tender, startling, and witty, a marvelously human perspective emerges on issues of love, sex, and the fascinating relationship between our physical and our intuitive selves. Through the clear eyes of a truly remarkable woman, She’s Not There provides a new window on the often confounding process of accepting ourselves.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 74 more reviews...
 Great Education October 11, 2008
I picked this book up from the library as a throw out, but it ended up being an education. As a fan of Middlesex, this book gave another view into the transgender world. Really who does not want to know more about all types of alternatives. I love to read more about the more risque part of sex, such as BDSM, but this topic presented itself and really humanized the subject. I would recommend this for anyone wanting to know the real stuggles that a transgendered person goes through on their journey towards "transition".
 "Can't Not" September 17, 2008
From his earliest memories as a three-year old, James Finney was never without the awareness that he was "in the wrong body, living the wrong life." As a youngster, a teenager, a college student, a husband deeply in love with his wife and two children, and a professor of English at Colby College in Maine, Boylan countered that unsettling consciousness for several long decades with "an exasperated companion thought, namely, 'Don't be an idiot, You're not a girl. Get over it.'" This deeply human memoir tells how James never "got over it" and how at the age of forty-three he finally had sex reassignment surgery that completed his transgendering to Jennifer.
Boylan says that her journey caused her "an almost inexpressible degree of private grief." She discovered that gender identity was far more complex than sexual attraction, cultural expectations, cross dressing, extended therapy, biology, or even genetics. It was not a choice for a certain lifestyle. She tried mightily to "accept who I wasn't," knowing that transgendering from male to female would "mean only loss and grief" for many people. In that herculean but ultimately futile quest she was aided by having inherited her mother's "boundless optimism." She counted her blessings, and especially the "greatest years of her life" in marriage to Carol and their two children. James knew full well that finally transitioning to a female would cause his beloved Carol untold grief, loss, and a sense of betrayal, and that he would bear his own grief and guilt as a result.
In the end, Boylan describes her transgendering from James to Jennifer as more like an "erosion" or "forced conscription" than a decision. This story is a powerful one because of its transparency. Most people supported her; her sister has never spoken to her since she transitioned. As you would expect, her memoir is partly a plea for understanding, but even that is not compromised by polemical or partisan zeal. James transgendered to Jennifer "because I can't not." After all the explanations and anguish, she concludes, "What I have come to realize is that no matter how much light one attempts to throw on this condition, it remains a mystery" (248). At the end of the book Boylan offers thirteen questions for discussion and eight books for further reading. Her sequel memoir called I'm Looking Through You was published in 2008.
The Courage to Change into One's True Self September 4, 2008
This incredible narrative is a profile in moral courage, revealing a psychological odyssey across four decades. Colby professor James Boylan gradually emerges as Jennifer---the woman he always knew was trapped inside a male body. As an author Boylan was both literate and successful, happily married and the father of two young boys. This journey of transformation to release his secret, feminine self is presented with humor, pathos and heart-wrenching honesty. Readers cannot but be touched by this desperate cry for acceptance in her new role-- with the sacrifice and perils of gradual, as well as sudden, femininity.
Related in deliberately unchronological order, this intriguing narrative challenges readers' flexibility--skipping from Boylan's past to the present via seemingly unrelated flashbacks: a temporal roller coaster. Anecdotes range from outrageous incidents to excruciating emotional cruelty, but all are woven into the fabric of full disclosure with intentionality. Obviously her transformation into womanhood did not occur in a social vacuum, for her astonishing decision impacted many lives: her devoted wife, her accepting sons (from Daddy to Maddy), and her acceptance by the Colby faculty--most notably by her colleague and best buddy. Readers commiserates with the faithful wife who could only watch the gradual disappearance of her adored husband. This book, a must for any course on Gender Studies, emerges as an honest mirror into the soul of a tortured man, who became a proud woman ultimately at peace with herself. Her story challenges contemporary society, its views on gender and the individual's right to change--to achieve full emoitonal potential.
Being True To Oneself August 6, 2008
There's a lot to like in this book. The writing, of course, is exquisite and displays the author's professional skill. But, more important, the candor of the author's difficult journey is breath-taking. The decision to transition was unexpected and unwelcomed by the author's wife Grace, who perceived it, not unfairly, as taking away her husband. The poignance and pain of that reaction is honestly described in verbatim accounts. Those intimate scenes show the extraordinary hardships transsexuals face when trying to steer their ship toward the life they know to be true for them. This book is rare in its confrontation of social arrangements and its illustration of the high price often charged for deviance.
Somewhat Engaging book on the hardships of a Transsexual July 22, 2008
I read this book in order to learn more about transsexuality after reading True Selves because a friend of mine recently came out and I was totally blown away. Ms Boylan tries her best to sort out her pros and cons of accepting who she is throughout the book that represents her life. She suppresses and tries to accept her identity as a Male from childhood to adulthood without much success. Even though she tells side stories of others she has met along the way I do not think Ms Boylan truly recognizes that she has a privilege over others like her because of the accepting community she lives in and her wealth. Since the book is also a little self obsessed at times I think is the reason I gave this product three stars.
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