AUTHOR VISIT: MOLLY HASKELL

On a visit
to New York, the brother of well-known film critic Molly Haskell dropped a
bombshell.  Nearing sixty and married
with children, Chevey revealed he was transsexual and would begin to live
openly as a woman. Despite her longstanding liberal views, Haskell was
dumbfounded. In her memoir, My Brother, My Sister: Story of a
Transformation, Haskell
recounts the steps in Chevey’s transition, while candidly exploring her own
emotional journey, to a place of acceptance, empathy, and love for her now
sister, Ellen. Haskell turns her critic’s eye on herself, but also broadens her
lens to include psychoanalytical and scientific research, meditations on sexual
anomalies in art and mythology as well as previously published memoirs such as
Jan Morris’s classic Conundrum.  In a memoir that pulls no punches in its
exploration of a controversial, delicate subject, Haskell has produced a
cultural map of not only her sister’s experience, but of gender roles and
transsexualism in a world increasingly governed by notions of individual
identity. My Brother My Sister is
tender, honest, informed, and at times a humorous must-read for anyone who has
ever struggled to discover who they really are. Registration
required.WHA560