Susan Faludi - In the Darkroom

William Collins

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.WilliamCollinsBooks.com

First published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2016

This eBook edition published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2017

Copyright © 2016, 2017 by Susan Faludi

Susan Faludi asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This is a work of nonfiction. The names and identifying characteristics of three individuals have been changed to protect their privacy.

‘I Am Easily Assimilated’ from Candide by Leonard Bernstein. Lyrics by Leonard Bernstein. Copyright © 1994 by Amberson Holdings LLC. Copyright renewed, Leonard Bernstein Music Publishing Company, publisher. International copyright secured. Reprinted by permission.

Excerpt from ‘Red Riding Hood’ from Transformations by Anne Sexton. Copyright © 1971 by Anne Sexton, renewed 1999 by Linda G. Sexton. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Excerpt from ‘Optimistic Voices (You’re Out of the Woods)’ from The Wizard of Oz. Lyrics by E. Y. Harburg. Music by Harold Arlen and Herbert Strothart. Copyright © 1938 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc., renewed 1939 by EMI Feist Catalog Inc. Rights throughout the world controlled by EMI Feist Catalog Inc. (publishing) and Alfred Music (print). Used by permission of Alfred Music. All rights reserved.

All photographs courtesy of the author, except for the following: here, Einar Wegener/Lili Elbe by Wellcome Library, London; here, Christine Jorgensen by Art Edger/NY Daily News Archive/Getty Images; here, Melanie’s Cocoon by Mel Myers; here, Class of ’45 photograph courtesy of Otto and Margaret Szekely; here, Parasite Press photograph courtesy of Judit Mészáros, the original in Budapest Collection of Szabó Ervin Central Library; here, Ford convertible by Marilyn Faludi; here, Magyar Garda rally by European Pressphoto Agency/Tamas Kovacs

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins

Source ISBN: 9780008194475

Ebook Edition © July 2017 ISBN: 9780008193515

Version: 2017-06-24

Additional Praise for In the Darkroom:

A SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2016

‘Faludi’s remarkable, moving and courageous book is extremely fair-minded’

Guardian

‘ In the Darkroom reads like a mystery thriller yet packs the emotional punch of a carefully crafted memoir. Susan Faludi’s investigation into her father’s life reveals, with humour and poignancy, the central paradox of being someone’s child. However close, our parents will always be, perhaps by nature of the role, fundamentally enigmatic to us’

AMANDA FOREMAN

‘Faludi weaves together these strands of her father’s identity – Jewishness, nationality, gender – with energy, wit and nuance … Faludi has paid her late father a fine tribute by bringing her to life in such a compelling, truthful story’

New Statesman

‘[A] mighty new book … a searching investigation of identity barely disguised as a sometimes funny and sometimes very painful family saga … reticent, elegant and extremely clever’

Observer

‘A fascinating chronicle of a decade trying to understand a parent who had always been inscrutable’

Economist

‘Compelling’

Sunday Times

Well-written … touching … compelling’

The Times

‘An astonishing, unique book that should be essential reading for anyone wanting to explore transsexuality’s place in contemporary culture’

Irish Independent

‘ In the Darkroom is a unique, deeply affecting and beautifully written book, full of warmth, intelligence and humour’

Saturday Paper

For the Grünbergers of Spišské Podhradie and the Friedmans of Košice, and their children and their children’s children, the family I found, and who found me

He thought about how he had been despised and scorned, and he heard everybody saying now that he was the most beautiful of all the beautiful birds. And the lilacs bowed their branches toward him, right down into the water. The sun shone so warm and so bright. Then he ruffled his feathers, raised his slender neck, and rejoiced from the depths of his heart. “I never dreamed of such happiness when I was an ugly duckling!”

Hans Christian Andersen, “The Ugly Duckling”

The identifying of ourselves with the visual image of ourselves has become an instinct; the habit is already old. The picture of me, the me that is seen, is me.

D. H. Lawrence, “Art and Morality”

Long ago

there was a strange deception:

a wolf dressed in frills,

a kind of transvestite.

But I get ahead of my story.

Anne Sexton, “Red Riding Hood”

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Additional Praise for In the Darkroom

Dedication

Epigraph

Preface: In Pursuit

PART I

1.Returns and Departures

2.Rear Window

3.The Original from the Copy

4.Home Insecurity

5.The Person You Were Meant to Be

6.It’s Not Me Anymore

7.His Body into Pieces. Hers.

8.On the Altar of the Homeland

9.Ráday 9

PART II

10.Something More and Something Other

11.A Lady Is a Lady Whatever the Case May Be

12.The Mind Is a Black Box

13.Learn to Forget

14.Some Kind of Psychic Disturbance

15.The Grand Hotel Royal

16.Smitten in the Hinder Parts

17.The Subtle Poison of Adjustment

18.You’re Out of the Woods

19.The Transformation of the Patient Is Without a Doubt

PART III

20.Pity, O God, the Hungarian

21.All the Female Steps

22.Paid Up

23.Getting Away with It

24.The Pregnancy of the World

25.Escape

Footnotes

About the Author

Also by Susan Faludi

About the Publisher

In the summer of 2004 I set out to investigate someone I scarcely knew, my father. The project began with a grievance, the grievance of a daughter whose parent had absconded from her life. I was in pursuit of a scofflaw, an artful dodger who had skipped out on so many things—obligation, affection, culpability, contrition. I was preparing an indictment, amassing discovery for a trial. But somewhere along the line, the prosecutor became a witness.

What I was witness to would remain elusive. In the course of a lifetime, my father had pulled off so many reinventions, laid claim to so many identities. “I’m a Hungaaaarian,” my father boasted, in the accent that survived all the shape shifts. “I know how to faaaake things.” If only it were that simple.