PULITZER PRIZE FINALISTONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEWS 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEARWINNER OF THE KIRKUS PRIZEWhen feminist writer Susan Faludi learned that her seventy-six-year-old fatherlong estranged and living in Hungaryhad 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 whod built his career on the alteration of imagesFaludi chases that mystery into the recesses of her suburban childhood and her fathers many previous incarnations 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 fancifuland virulentnationhood.Faludis struggle to come to grips with her fathers metamorphosis takes her across bordershistorical, political, religious, sexualto bring her face to face with the question of the age Is identity something you choose, or is it the very thing you cant escape
