Tags
Susan Faludi’s In the Darkroom was not what I expected. What I expected was a memoir/biography about Faludi and her father and her father’s transition to a woman at the age of 70. But I am glad it was not what I expected because it turned out to be so much more.
Faludi’s father is the driving core of the book. He was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1927 to wealthy parents who weren’t exactly the most attentive, often leaving him in the care of a nanny for days and weeks at a time. His parents and family were part of the upper-class Jewish community and owned a number of buildings including the luxury apartment building where they lived. Then WWII happened. Anti-Semitism had been bubbling under the surface of Hungarian society for a long time so when the Nazi’s invaded, it did not take much prompting from them for the country to turn on the Jews. The young Istavan actually posed as a Nazi in order to save his parents from detention and then deportation to a camp. After the war the Communists moved in and all of the family’s property was claimed by the state. The family survived the war but were left with nothing.
Istavan became a professional photographer. He and a couple friends put together a bold plan that allowed them to escape Communist Hungary to Brazil where they joined a thriving Jewish community. There, he made a name for himself as an important and influential photographer. At one point he went to New York where he met the Hungarian woman who would become Faludi’s mother. Istavan moved to New York, they married, and started a family. But the marraige eventually crumbled.
Faludi remembers her father’s temper that would sometimes turn abusive. When she was in her early teens she told her father she might want to become a Christian and he proceeded to yell and scream, push her down and beat her head on the floor. One of the last times she saw her father, he stabbed the man his not-yet-divorced wife was having an affair with. It was over twenty years before she saw her father again.
By this time her father had moved back to Hungary. She was prompted to go see him because of an announcement her father sent her that said she had had gender reassignment surgery in Thailand and was no longer Istavan but Stefanie. Faludi had to go see for herself whether her father was still the same person or if becoming Stefanie had changed everything.
Rather than focusing on transgender psychology and science and all the issues that surround it, Faludi chooses to make the book an exploration of identity on multiple levels — father, family, Hungarian, Jewish — and intertwines it with history and the present, the personal and political and cultural, implying that who we are is not a simple, straighforward thing and identity is not created in a vacuum:
But who is the person you ‘were meant to be?’ Is who you are what you make of yourself, the self you fashion into being, or is it determined by your inheritance and all its fateful forces, genetic, familial, ethnic, religious, cultural, historical? In other words: is identity what you choose, or what you can’t escape?
In the end she concludes that identity is “molten” and “malleable,” that the only true binary is life and death.
I have to mention how brilliant the title is because it turns out to have so many layers to it. The obvious one relates to the fact that her father was a photographer. In a photographic darkroom you also develop film and so this can also be stretched to relate to developing an identity. As the book progresses we also learn that Faludi’s father spent part of WWII hiding with his father in the apartment of a sympathetic doctor who had taken his family elsewhere for a vacation. They, of course, could never turn on the lights for fear of giving away their presence. And we learn that Istavan’s parents would sometimes punish him by locking him up in a dark room for hours. Then of course there are all sorts of other resonances for dark rooms and the things that might go on there.
In the Darkroom is a fantastic book. Faludi does not hide how difficult her relationship is with her father nor does she pretend that they patch everything up and things are suddenly grand. She does her best to tell her father’s story with the honesty and respect she deserves, to honor her and who she was and is to the best of her ability. Could anyone ask for more?
This is a fantastic review. Thank you for sharing it.
LikeLike
Thanks Carolyn! It was a good book which in some ways makes it easier to write about 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Wow.
LikeLike
Jeanne, yeah, I said that a lot while reading!
LikeLike
This sounds like a very compelling memoir. I have a love-hate relationship with memoirs, but I might check this one out. Thanks for the review.
LikeLike
AMB, it is excellent and quite satisfying. I you read it I hope you like it!
LikeLike
Wonderful review! And what a great book. I love the premises and how the story is interwoven with so much more than the change of the gender! I will see if I can find a copy here!
LikeLike
cirtnecce, thanks! I like the way it defied my expectations. Very well done. I hope you can find a copy and that you like it if you read it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Terrific review. I’ve heard her interviewed and although I am always cautious with books that enter into trans terrain this does sound very good.
LikeLike
This sounds like a very fascinating book. It seems like a memoir that takes on that extraordinary 20th century.
LikeLike
Ian, yes, the 20th century and the 21st because present-day Hungary is extremely nationalistic and rampant with anti-Semitism and homophobia. Faludi does a great job at diving into everything, making it interesting and moving it along at a good pace.
LikeLike
Thanks roughghosts! Given Faludi’s previous books I was expecting a full-out social and political of the “trans terrain” as you call it. While some of that is included it is not what the book is really about which to makes it more interesting because it portrays her father not as transgender but as human.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I heard an interview with Faludi. Based on that and your commentary, this book sounds very good.
I like the fact that it seems to be not the book that a lot of people would expect.
LikeLike
Brian Joseph, Faludi is an excellent writer and comes across in the book as a generous and compassionate person. I will have to go find that interview.
LikeLike
You’ve sold me. I love the sound of this book, though I’m not sure I’ll get to it. I love the idea of “an exploration of identity on multiple levels — father, family, Hungarian, Jewish” because we are more than one identity and too often, particularly with gender reassignment the focus is on one thing.
LikeLike
whisperinggums, the exploration of identity is fascinating especially when she talks about certain aspects of it with her father and what she thinks about it. Her father died in 2014 but knew Faludi was writing about her and was glad to work with her on the project.
LikeLiked by 1 person
What a nice surprise for you. This sounds really amazing–what an interesting life and how nice that Faludi writes about it in such a way–and at such a perspicacious time as well! Life and our identities are really very complicated, aren’t they–she seems to have captured it all so well.
LikeLike
Danielle, a timely book on many levels. Identity is definitely a complex and complicated thing and I really appreciated how she did not make attempts to simplify it.
LikeLike
Sounds fantastic!
LikeLike
Valorie, it is! Well worth the time.
LikeLike
I was a bit put-off initially by the transgender theme (too PC, trendy?) but hearing that Faludi handles this so well and broadens to the issue of identity on multiple levels has changed my mind. Thanks for the great review. 🙂
LikeLike
Pete, Thanks! The only reason I read the book was because I trust Faludi as an author and she hit a home run with this one. If you decide to read it, I hope you like it!
LikeLike
What a terrific review, Stefanie, I can tell how much the book meant to you and how thought-provoking it was. I think it’s really important for us all to shake off the old idea of fixed personality and what it means for our ‘destiny’. We can as people so much over a lifetime, though not all as dramatically as Istavan/Stefanie. You’ve made me want to read a book I don’t think I’ve have picked up otherwise. (And ps I’m a bit jealous because I’m struggling with a review of a book I’m not enjoying!)
LikeLike
Thanks Maggie! It really was a wonderful book with lots of things to chew on. You are right, who we are does change throughout our lives and for some it is more dramatic than others but it would do us all good to acknowledge the complexities of who we are. Sorry you are struggling to write about a book you didn’t like! It is difficult to find a balance in those cases since you know someone else probably loved the book.
LikeLike
Now here’s a book that I hadn’t even heard of and which might not immediately pique my interest but having read your review I am intrigued and so much more than ‘just’ a memoir, fascinating though Faludi’s father’s life may have been. Identity seems even more complex than I’d imagined! It must have been a challenging book for her to write.
LikeLike
Helen, I learned quite a lot about Hungary! But yes, identity is a very complex thing and it turns out no one even talked about the idea of identity until around the 1960s! I suspect it was a challenging book for Faludi to write but she did great.
LikeLike
What a fascinating book. So many areas to explore. I don’t read memoirs often but I would certainly give this one a try.
LikeLike
Iliana, it is really interesting the way Faludi approached it. Should you ever read it I hope you like it!
LikeLike
Terrific review, Stefanie! This book sounds really interesting. I bet it would be a good one for a book group. I might have to add this to the TBR.
LikeLike
Thanks Laila! It would most definitely make an excellent book group read. So much in it to discuss!
LikeLiked by 1 person