Starred review from January 31, 2000
Ebershoff, the publishing director at Modern Library, has taken a highly unusual subject--and a big chance--for his first novel. That it comes off triumphantly is a tribute to his taste and restraint and to the highly empathetic quality of his imagination. His book is based on the real-life story of Einar Wegener, a Danish artist who 70 years ago became the first man to be medically transformed into a woman--long before the much better-known case of Christine Jorgensen. Ebershoff has naturally changed some of the characters, giving Einar an American wife from his own native city of Pasadena, thereby introducing a New World perspective on the drama. For a very real drama it is. Einar struggles with his inclinations to become the woman he and his wife, Greta, refer to as Lili, seemingly more agonized about what the change would mean than Greta, who is deeply loving and amazingly supportive throughout Einar's long ordeal. Seldom has the delicate question of sexual identity been more subtly probed (one would have to go all the way back to Jan Morris's autobiographical Conundrum); and Ebershoff's remarkable feel for the period atmosphere and detail of 1920s Copenhagen and early-'30s Dresden, where Lili's life-transforming operation is finally performed, has been poetically and intensely rendered. The portraits of the various medical men who offer their very different solutions to the problem are brilliantly accomplished. The original story ended much more unhappily than Ebershoff's, but his poignant and visionary conclusion is a fitting one for what is, above all, and despite its sensationalist trimmings, a profound and beautifully realized love story. Eight-city author tour; rights sold in Germany, Italy, U.K., Spain, Australia, Brazil, Finland, Portugal, the Netherlands and Denmark.
May 31, 2010
Ebershoff's bestseller—based on the true story of 1920s married artists Einar and Gerda Gottleib Wegener—makes a rocky transition to audio. After posing in women's clothing for his wife's portrait work, Einar explores a preference for appearing as a woman. Eventually, he undergoes sex reassignment surgery and becomes Lili Elbe. The narration switches between Lili's and Gerda's points of view, and listeners might be left wondering why the Einar/Lili characterization seems to be a split personality, with Einar and Lili thinking of the other as separate, and both Einar and Gerda viewing Lili as a third individual. It's a confusing and dry listen made more puzzling by the decision to have the audiobook narrated by a male reader, when so much of the story is told from Gerda and Lili's viewpoints. Nevertheless, Jeff Woodman turns in a solid performance. He has a smooth voice and delivery; he gives Lili with a softness and timidity that sounds fitting and has Gerda sounding more assertive and confident. A Penguin hardcover.