Customer Reviews

Dress Codes: Of Three Girlhoods--My Mother's, My Father's, and Mine

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

There have been a number of interesting books by men who have changed into women, starting with Jan Morris's _Conundrum_, and including _Crossing_ by Deirdre McCloskey a couple of years ago. McCloskey's change was devastating to the family of which she had formerly been father, and she was locked out of their lives, but we did not get to read the family's side of the story. Now, Noelle Howey, in _Dress Codes: Of Three Girlhoods - My Mother's, My Father's and Mine_ (Picador), has let us hear from the daughter of such a family, but the results are outstandingly different. "This isn't a tragedy," she writes. "It's just nonfiction." It is a memoir brightly told, often achingly funny, and sympathetic to all concerned. There will be those who argue that a father who imposes such a change on his family makes a mockery of family values, and it is true that Howey's family had serious struggles and the marriage did not last. But they loved and helped each other through the crisis and afterwards, and you can't find better family values than that. Far from being the story only of a man who had to change his gender, _Dress Codes_ succeeds in telling how mother, father, and daughter all came of age and found their true selves.

Howey knows this material is strange, but she specifies that learning about sexuality, at least in current mainstream America, is something most of us do in a stumbling fashion. Her own stumblings are recounted here with good humor, and for the book, she interviewed each of her parents about their own sexual upbringing, a process of hours that she says she will treasure forever. Of course the father's realization about himself, played over decades, is the main reason for this memoir, and Howey tells the history of her father's coming to terms with herself with sympathy and without psychologizing. Like most transsexuals, he found it hard to fit in when he was growing up, although he was competent in school and eventually as an advertising executive. He liked wearing women's clothes, but it must be clearly understood that enjoying cross-dressing is different from feeling that one is in a body of the wrong sex. Howey has to correct a friend who is incredulous that her father would go through all the therapy, electrolysis, and surgery just to wear a dress. "For what it's worth, my father didn't go through 'all that' to wear a dress. She prefers suede blazers with pleated slacks." He was not an ideal father as Howey was growing up - distant, critical, and uncommunicative, there was something wrong with him. Importantly, as Dick became Christine, her father became more understanding and understandable. Eventually, after the divorce, the family planned a big coming out party for Christine Howey, and it went very well, with fairly good acceptance from other family members and co-workers. They did have to undergo criticism, such as one male friend of the family who took the opportunity to inform Howey's mom that if she had been more feminine he would have had more incentive to stay the way God made him.

Howey has written the story of a family and its members who have gone through enormous changes and have helped each other all they could. Her candid, funny writing is a pleasure to read; there are times of sweet sadness revealed here, but also of hilarious irony. They survived by "employing humor, tinted car windows and thousands of dollars worth of therapy... A traditional family - loving father, supportive mother, doting child - that would probably be the right wing's worst nightmare." Maybe, but it is hard to imagine anyone reading this sensitive memoir and not having admiration for the growth of all its characters.

I first came across Noelle Howey's experience in a briefly condensed first-person magazine article, and was delighted to pick up this book which is a more detailed account of her family's transition and restructuring.

Her dad started out as the quintesential "good old boy" but gradually realized that he had to be open with his need to be a female lesbian. The disclosure alternatley reassured and startled the author who realized that American society does not generally supply children of GLBTs with a "what to expect" guidebook.

Although I personally was not undergoing a story simmilar to hers, I was captivated by the frank prose and unyielding love for her father--irrespective of dad's gender. The journey was not easy for any of the family members (indeed, Howey takes care not to gloss over the contradictory feelings and internal frustrations that she experienced during her dad's transformation), but absolutley critical for the family's mental stability.

Our society loves to wax poetic on "family values" but does not neccesarily place compatible actions behind those words. Against all expectations and pronouncements from the larger society, the Howey family dealt with the revelation in a positive and empowering manner that ultimatley made the new family structure a zillon times stronger than their so-called "All American" model.

Even if you do not have a transgendered family member, it is impossible to read this book without crying, laughing or otherwise being reminded that good families come in all formats.

No matter how many memoirs you may have read, I can guarantee you've never seen anything like this.

This is a true story that is truly amazing in that the characters are such regular "ordinary people." I'm not giving anything away here, but the author's dad becomes a woman. The author purposely blows this "big secret" on about page 3 and you should be able to tell from the title anyway. And while this may sound somewhat sensational and shocking to a mainstream audience, that's not what the story is about. "Dress Codes" is the story of a family that honestly loves each other and stands by one another, even though they don't even come close to resembling the traditional definition of "family."

It's also about what it means to be a woman, which I am not, but it still gave me a lot to think about. It's also about the challenges of adolesence. And growing up in the '80s. And effects of secrets and lies on a person. And so much more.

It's also a unique memoir in that Noelle, the author, is not the only main character. The book alternates between characters, and decades, to illustrate her, her mother and her father all coming into womanhood. Watching the three stories intertwine made it hard for me to put this book down.

All in all, "Dress Codes" was such a pleasant surprise for me. I read it because a friend recommended it to me and I never expected it to be one of my favorite books I've read this year. It's touching, I'm not afraid to admit I got a little teary at one point. It really funny, especially if you grew up in the 80s at all. And it made me step back and think a number of times. Just a very cool book.

Recently, my community experienced the shock, horror and burden of having one of its own, a transgendered young man in the process of discovering his true shelf, murdered. This abominable hate crime opened up not only wounds but questions. What is a transgendered person? Is "it" a he, a she, or both? In what ways do transgendered people challenge our notions of sexuality? What does it truly mean to be a "man" or a "woman"? Do any of us have the courage to confront misplaced identity as much as transgendered people muster?

As we confronted the reality of a hate crime and its attendant national publicity, forgotten was the humanity of the victim. Noelle Howey's remarkable memoir, "Dress Codes," achieves the near impossible; she makes a type a real human being. Not only does Noelle's recount her father's evolution from Dick Howey to Rebecca Christine Howey, she does so with aplomb and humor. Every page of this wrenching, honest work is absolutely human. As a result, "Dress Codes" is in part angry, hopeful, remorseful and incredibly funny. The author refuses to pull any punches, instead preferring to let her story (and wonderfully trenchant observations) inform her readers.

The subtitle of Howey's work instructs us that she will be treating three girlhoods, her mother's, her father's and her own. Each person "comes out" and discovers not only the truth of his/her own sexuality, but the essence of his/her identity. And the discovery is never neat, tidy or convenient. Hearts break, marriage dissolves and a sensitive child must come of age, eventually unencumbered by the secrets of her family and the torment in her own soul. There is sufficient grist for the human mill in each of the three central characters for three separate books. Howey's skill as a writer emerges in her sensitive treatment of the interplay of mother, father and daughter, the intersection of sex, parenting and developmental growth through and between each of the three.

As Dick Howey transforms himself into Christine Howey, he becomes a she, and she develops a true humanity. At the onset of Dick's journey into transgendered identity, he "saunters around his bedroom, feeling ashamed, prurient, dubious, criminal, insance, peculiar and eccentric." Not only that, he is also "completely at one with himself." Noelle's coming to grips with her father's sexuality, one born in suppressed knowledge, causes a severe disorientation during which she is "inhabiting a surreal landscape of opposites where black was white, and of course, male was female." Noelle bristles at sympathy; she "couldn't bear to have normal people feeling sorry for me."

Quietly, unobtrusively, but surely, Noelle's mother, Dinah, emerges as a gifted, compassionate and strong force. Never once varying from her own sense of self, she suffers through the knowledge that not only did her husband never feel content with his biological sexual identity, but that social recrimination (ironically on her as much as him) would be the price she would pay for understanding. Dinah remains a close friend to Dick/Christine, and in so doing, becomes a model of humanity, one desperately needed by the young adult Noelle who descends steeply into her own world of pain.

One day, hopefully in the not too-distant future, sociologists will read "Dress Codes" and shake their heads at the stunted attitudes most Americans held in the late twentieth century about sexual identity and expression. Yet, at the same time, they will marvel at the authenticity of voice and the tenacity of spirit in this memoir. Noelle Howey's words serve as a moral compass, and her work should become a staple of any enlightened secondary school's sex education curriculum.

This evening I had the great pleasure of hearing Noelle Howey read from her memoir DRESS CODES. This is not a book it would ordinarily occur to me to pick up, but Noelle's voice and extraordinary storytelling ability makes DRESS CODES a must-read. From page one I was hooked. What is so compelling about Noelle Howey's story is how she makes what at first glance seems so strange - a father becoming a woman - into an every-family story (she grew up in Ohio, what is more middle-America than that?). Do yourself a favor and read DRESS CODES.

I bought this book in the "on sale" part of Amazon one day, because it was the cheapest book that could get me over the "free shipping" hump. I thought, "It sounds alright -- maybe I'll find time to read it one day."

Well that one day happened while I was rearranging furniture last week. Dress Codes fell out of my bookshelf so I picked it up and said, "Huh! I forgot all about this book!" I sat down on my office chair and flipped to a random page in the book to see if it was any good. Six hours and a damn good story later, I went to bed.

The book weaves an interesting twist of biographical stories from the view point of her parents as children, along with her own childhood story. She explores the characters in her family with depth and humor. Each chapter leaves you hungry for more.

Enjoy the author's communist grandfather, socialite grandmother, goes-along-with-anything mom, and her grumpy dad with his humorous efforts to prove his masculinity!

This is a well-written memoir by a remarkable young woman who, at the age of fifteen, was made aware of the fact that her father was suffering from gender dysphoria. It seemed that her father enjoyed cross dressing and had decided that he would prefer to do so all the time. He had come to a realization that he was actually a transsexual and not just a transvestite.

This wryly funny memoir, which is not just the author's memoir but that of her mother, as well, and, to some extent, that of her father, though, as in life, his essence remains the most elusive. The author is clearly an intelligent, perceptive young woman, and she lays bare her parents' relationship, to the extent that she can, with their blessing, as well as her recollection of growing up in a household where the father was evidently deeply troubled by his gender issues. She outlines the impact that this had on him and, consequently, on her and her mother, as well as on the family dynamics. She fully discusses the changes that his coming out about his gender issues would confer upon them all, both good and bad.

Informative as well as entertaining, the author manages to infuse a great deal of perceptiveness in analyzing the familial relationships. She supported her father's decision, though some of the issues that she had with him were not as a direct result of his gender dysphoria, but rather with the way he treated both her and her mother as she was growing up. Still, as someone who grew up in a seemingly traditional nuclear family, only to find herself in a non-traditional one, the author has remained remarkable sanguine about the entire experience.

This is a wonderful book that gives a birds-eye view of the experience of living with someone who has gender dysphoria. It is also gives the reader a peek into a family that was simply trying to cope the best way that they knew how, given the little that they knew about what was really at the core of many of the troubling dynamics within the household. It is a book that grounds what some may perceive as an unreal situation in the context of a vital family that was simply struggling to survive a complicated situation into which they were thrust by forces beyond their control. It is a portrait of a family in pain that survives and comes to terms with its permutation.

I bought this book because I'm addicted to memoirs-at least currently. After reading the first chapter, I almost aborted the reading effort, thinking it might be too sexual for my tastes and that I wasn't really interested in transgender issues. But I stuck with it and this book stuck to my hands for two days while I couldn't put it down. It is incredibly well written (it reads like a novel) and the author is so honest and forthright, she becomes a teacher on issues beyond transgender and ultimately into clinical depression. It's a terribly sad story, painful and emotional on many levels, yet ultimately triumphant and always very FUNNY! I kept looking at the young author's photo on the book jacket-and the collection of family photos on the covers--to remind myself that these characters are real people, even the people next door. Noelle Howey has an impressive vocabulary and a knack for writing things simply, yet elegantly. I highly recommend this book.

Michele Cozzens, Author of A Line Between Friends and The Things I Wish I'd Said.

"Dress Codes" focuses on what it means to be a woman. Noelle Howey delves into her own life as a teen maturing into a young woman despite being raised by dysfunctional parents: her mom a codependent housewife, and her dad a cold, uncommunicative father who turns out to be a transsexual. Howey successfully plays her own girlhood off her father's as he transforms from Dick to Christine. The book is not really about transsexualism, but about a family learning to grow and thrive despite many challenges.

Howey writes with incredible skill about what had to be emotionally wrenching life experience. Her attention to detail gives the reader a strong sense of the time period (references to pop stars, movies and politics of the time), and she weaves her story with a sense of humor and insight into not only her parents but herself. By the end, the reader clearly understands the complexity of her relationship with both of her parents.

Those expecting to learn about transsexualism will be pleased on some level and dissappointed on another. The book is not about transsexualism but about the author's family and her father's journey into personhood, not just womanhood. However, it is eye-opening and reveals how a family is affected by transsexualism, and Howey's account portrays the experience as surprisingly normal.

"Dress Codes" is the kind of book that keeps readers hooked, and regardless of one's views on gender identity, offers something we can all relate to: family.

What the author has done is not "merely" tell her story, one that might scandalize some readers, extremely well, but has also achieved something quite singular, made more amazing by her youth. Howey shares her family saga -- at times heart-rending, hilarious, and always heartfelt -- all the while in total control of her emotions, in a memoir that revels in the lives of its subjects. Never maudlin nor preachy, trite or Prozac Nation-esque, Dress Codes is a truly special book by an author whose mastery of language and story structure will doubtless make her a force to be reckoned with in the future.