In the Darkroom

By: Susan Faludi

Narrated by: Laurel Lefkow

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and best-selling author of Backlash comes In the Darkroom, an astonishing confrontation with the enigma of her father, and the larger riddle of identity consuming our age.

"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."

So begins Susan Faludi's extraordinary inquiry into the meaning of identity in the modern world, and in her own haunted family saga. When the feminist writer learned her 76-year-old father - long estranged and living in Hungary - had undergone sex reassignment surgery, that investigation would turn personal and urgent. How was this new parent who identified as "a complete woman now" connected to the silent, explosive, and ultimately violent father she had known?

Faludi chases that mystery into the recesses of her childhood, and her father's many 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 fanciful - and virulent - nationhood. The search for identity that has transfixed our century was proving as treacherous for nations as for individuals.

Faludi's struggle to come to grips with her father's metamorphosis self takes her across borders - historical, political, religious, sexual - to bring her face to face with the question of the age: Is identity something you "choose", or a thing you can't escape?

©2016 Susan Faludi (P)2016 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Narrator Laurel Lefkow shines most brightly when recounting the most difficult moments of Susan Faludi's life.... This immersive story about a father and daughter illuminates so much more." ( AudioFile)

Not a favorite

Not for me. Struggled to finish, didn't hold my interest. Fascinating premise, but lost something in the telling.

Brilliant

Intellectually rich, emotionally moving, and wonderfully performed. Equal parts biography and historical narrative, Faludi's exploration of identity is riveting.

After a rough start book improved immensely

I struggled with the first few chapters of this book. The main character is certainly not a hero but rather an anti-hero. He/she is need a kind nor really compelling. However the historical and sociological aspects and components of the book as the story proceeds are fascinating. I would recommend this book but it is not an easy read. I am glad I prevailed but this is by no means a “page turner “!

Enjoyable mix of history and family dynamics

I enjoyed both the story and the narration. The POV of the author on her quest to understand her father unfolds over the course of time and the span of a lifetime. Well constructed and written.

Worthy of the praise

Any additional comments?

The accolades this memoir/history/identity study has garnered are incredibly well-deserved. Susan Faludi, journalist, has beautifully documented her fraught relationship with her father, and his fraught relationship with identity. The book opens with Faludi heading to Budapest to visit her father who, via email, reveals to her that he has undergone a sex reassignment surgery and has transformed from Steven into Stefanie. What follows is part personal memoir of life with her father and part journalistic investigation. On the one hand, Faludi's writes a lovely if conflicted remembrance of her father, his creativity and knack for editing and airbrushing (he was a well known photographer), his violent outbursts, his controlling nature, and his internal struggles. On the other, her father's transformation leaders her to an investigation into gender identity and into Hungary during WWII (her father came of age as a Jew in that nightmarish time). The book is wonderful and sad, confusing and fascinating. Highly recommended.