Rating: 
Summary: beautiful and seductive
Review: This is a magnificent novel; quite simply one of the best novels' to be published recently. A startlingly beautiful account of one individual's struggle with his sexual identity. The protagonist's loneliness, his strength and his ability to rise above his situation is wonderfully portrayed. The love relationship between Greta and Ienar/Lillie is tastefully handled and compassionately conveyed. Ebershoff seems to effortlessly transport us from Pasadena to Copenhagen to Paris as we watch the growth and stransformation of Lillie. This novel is a painting of words full of light, colour, darkness and shade. Ebershoff is an exceptional writer, his capacity for natural detail cannot be matched and his historical knowledge of Germany, Califiornia and Denmark in the early part of last century is remarkable. A great novel which perfectly handles a sensitive subject. This is a homage to friendship in the face of loneliness and adversity and a testament to the fact that one CAN find his true path in life.
Rating: 
Summary: An Unusual Way To Become A Widow
Review: This is a most unusual, perhaps unique novel of one man's journey from being a man to becoming a woman. Einar is Danish, and married to a California woman. They live in Denmark, and the story starts in the 1920s. There is a woman entrapped in Einar's body, and as the book progresses "Lili" becomes the predominant personality. Einar/Lili's wife Greta is supportive, and loves both persons. She and their circle of friends help Einar find a doctor who performs on Einar what is evidently the first transsexual operation. This book is based on a true event, but the author's motivation in writing the book is not to record history. He attempts to focus on the emotional life of the characters. What does Greta feel as her husband slowly fades away, and a young woman takes his place? How does Einar cope with his sexual confusion? I feel the author is not totally successful in meeting this literary challenge. Greta is almost saintly in her support. Would she not have gone through more emotional turmoil than is predicted here? For one thing their weak sex life all but disappeared shortly after they married. All of their friends are totally behind Greta and Einar. Were people in Europe in the 1920s that much more tolerant than 20th century Americans? Perhaps so, but the author seems to me to have buried an awful lot of feelings. I worked for many years in the field of mental health, and came across a few transsexual patients. They were seriously conflicted individuals. In any event this is a novel unlike any that I have read before. Highly recommended unless you find such topics threatening. This will probably not be choice reading for members of the Christian Coalition.
Rating:
Summary: PORTRAIT OF A MARRIAGE...
Review: This is a stunning debut novel by someone who is no novice to the publishing industry, as he is the director of The Modern Library, which is a division of Random House. With this book as his entree into the ranks of novelist, Mr. Ebershoff rightly claims a place among the distinguished. This is a most elegantly written novel. His book is loosely based upon the true story of Danish painters, Einar Wegener and Gerda Waud. They met in Copenhagen, while they were both art students, and married a few years later. He painted landscapes, while she would become known for her paintings of a mysterious sloe-eyed beauty. When it eventually became known that the model for the mysterious beauty in Gerda's paintings was, in fact, her cross-dressing husband, they became the scandal of Copenhagen. They left Denmark and sought refuge in Paris, France, where the mystery woman of Gerda's paintings began appearing in the flesh among the denizens of the Parisian demi-monde. There is little doubt that Gerda encouraged her husband in his cross-dressing, as well as in his eventual surgical transformation. In 1930, the couple again turned the world on its head when it became known that Einar Wegener had undergone the world's first known sex re-assignment operation in Germany, and emerged as Lili Elbe. This provoked the King of Denmark himself to annul their marriage. Unfortunately, Lili Elbe's life as a surgically transformed woman ended in 1931 with her death. The author expertly weaves these facts, which were the inspiration for this novel, into a lyrically written, haunting narrative about two people who were bound to each other by an unconditional love that would transcend the conventional. He creates an intriguing, spellbinding story that is a sensitive portrait of a most unusual marriage. The author takes the reader on a journey into the imagined psyche of these two individuals, as their marriage slowly devolves and Lili becomes more and more prominent in their lives. The author leads the reader through Lili's gradual metamorphosis, her poignant self-realization, and the final denouement of the marriage. This is an exquisitely crafted novel by a very gifted writer. Bravo!
Rating:
Summary: PORTRAIT OF A MARRIAGE...
Review: This is a stunning debut novel by someone who is no novice to the publishing industry, as he is the director of The Modern Library, which is a division of Random House. With this book as his entree into the ranks of novelist, Mr. Ebershoff rightly claims a place among the distinguished. This is a most elegantly written novel. His book is loosely based upon the true story of Danish painters, Einar Wegener and Gerda Waud. They met in Copenhagen, while they were both art students, and married a few years later. He painted landscapes, while she would become known for her paintings of a mysterious sloe-eyed beauty. When it eventually became known that the model for the mysterious beauty in Gerda's paintings was, in fact, her cross-dressing husband, they became the scandal of Copenhagen. They left Denmark and sought refuge in Paris, France, where the mystery woman of Gerda's paintings began appearing in the flesh among the denizens of the Parisian demi-monde. There is little doubt that Gerda encouraged her husband in his cross-dressing, as well as in his eventual surgical transformation. In 1930, the couple again turned the world on its head when it became known that Einar Wegener had undergone the world's first known sex re-assignment operation in Germany, and emerged as Lili Elbe. This provoked the King of Denmark himself to annul their marriage. Unfortunately, Lili Elbe's life as a surgically transformed woman ended in 1931 with her death. The author expertly weaves these facts, which were the inspiration for this novel, into a lyrically written, haunting narrative about two people who were bound to each other by an unconditional love that would transcend the conventional. He creates an intriguing, spellbinding story that is a sensitive portrait of a most unusual marriage. The author takes the reader on a journey into the imagined psyche of these two individuals, as their marriage slowly devolves and Lili becomes more and more prominent in their lives. The author leads the reader through Lili's gradual metamorphosis, her poignant self-realization, and the final denouement of the marriage. This is an exquisitely crafted novel by a very gifted writer. Bravo!
Rating: 
Summary: Very stiff
Review: This is an amazing story. As I delved deeper and deeper into this couple's life the more amazed I was. My problem with the book was with the writing itself. Mr. Ebershoff does a good job building the case for the couple and showing us how much the care for each other. However the writing itself was stiff and non-poetic.
Rating:
Summary: True Transformation!
Review: What a great book! Author David Ebershoff writes an incredibly beautiful novel on the life of Einar Wagner and his journey to became Lili Elbe. While I know very little about the actual events that are the basis for this novel Ebershoff writes with such vivid detail that I felt tlike I was there as a reader. While Einar/Lilli is a geat character, I was amazed at the character of Greta (Einar's wife and Lilli's friend) who accepts her husband's life, which slowly and painfully comes to a point where a decison must be made between the two for the both of them. Good books like this don't come often and that makes me want to treasure this work that much more.
Rating:
Summary: True Transformation!
Review: What a great book! Author David Ebershoff writes an incredibly beautiful novel on the life of Einar Wagner and his journey to became Lili Elbe. While I know very little about the actual events that are the basis for this novel Ebershoff writes with such vivid detail that I felt tlike I was there as a reader. While Einar/Lilli is a geat character, I was amazed at the character of Greta (Einar's wife and Lilli's friend) who accepts her husband's life, which slowly and painfully comes to a point where a decison must be made between the two for the both of them. Good books like this don't come often and that makes me want to treasure this work that much more.
Rating: 
Summary: Fiction not nearly as exciting as truth
Review: What most people know about transsexuals can usually fit on an index card, and even those who know a little something about them think of Christine Jorgenson as the "first transsexual." Wrong. This book is a fictionalized account of a real person, a Danish landscape painter by the name of Einar Wegener, who embarked on a long and ultimately fatal road to become Lili Elbe. The story, by the author's own admission, plays fast and loose with the truth--in this version, Einar is persuaded to become Lili at the suggestion of his wife Gerda (here renamed Greta, who is inexplicably Americanized). Here the story almost descends into the most laughable of cross-dressing fiction: the initially resistant male who comes to accept the feminine side of himself. What saves it are the glimpses of between-the-wars Copenhagen and Paris, so vivid I could imagine myself standing among the shops and restaurants. Though Ebershoff is not (I presume) transsexual himself, he seems to have remarkable insight into a transsexual's mind, as when a man starts to show an interest in the newly-emerged Lili. She runs, both out of terror that she will be discovered and the realization that she has feelings for him. Anyone who is transsexual or trangendered has felt that panic. That said, I fail to see the reason for fictionalizing the story. Lili Elbe was an extraordinarily brave individual, blazing a trail for countless others. Her real story would have been just as interesting, but it remains to be told.
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