One Day I'll Grow Up and Be a Beautiful Woman

April 1, 2024

Novelist and high school librarian Maxwell (Lake People) writes a memoir about her family's life in rural New Hampshire after her child changes her name and announces she is a girl. Maxwell weaves her own childhood and that of her daughter's with the national push by right-wing politicians to punish trans kids. Prepub Alert.

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August 15, 2024
Being different in America. In an affecting memoir, novelist Maxwell recounts years of frustration, rage, and sadness as she and her husband fought for support--from schools, neighbors, and the community--for their transgender child. The couple was living in the idyllic New Hampshire town of Gilford when their son was born. The difficult infant grew into a "brilliant but angry" young boy, whose tantrums and behavior problems finally led to a diagnosis of autism. The Maxwells faced bureaucratic obstacles in finding special services at school, and soon more challenges arose: their son chose pink sneakers and opted for a witch's costume on Halloween, inciting malicious gossip in a town that held to rigid gender conventions. Even more shocking was the full transition that their child made in first grade. She was now Greta, and, for the conservative community, she was a problem. Maxwell testifies to responses that ranged from condescending to belligerent, as parents and school administrators focused on bathrooms for transgender students, eligibility for sports teams, and controversy over adopting policy to end bullying. At one point, the superintendent ruled that the wordtransgender could be used only in private conversation with Greta, but never in a public setting. Interwoven with Greta's story is the plight of Maxwell's younger, gay brother, who attempted suicide because of the homophobia he faced. To protect their daughter from that mental anguish, the Maxwells planned to move to Montana, which they thought would provide a more accepting environment--until they discovered that the state, like many others, offered no protection against hate crimes, school bullying, or public accommodations for transgender individuals. With bigoted legislation being enacted nationwide, the Maxwells stayed in New Hampshire. They found a welcoming town, where, at last, they can watch their growing girl thrive. A disheartening chronicle of intolerance.

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Starred review from September 16, 2024
“I’d felt detached from my body as far back as I could remember,” writes novelist Maxwell (The Lake People) in the opening paragraphs of this captivating family memoir. From there, she unspools the story of her trans daughter, Greta, who was born after Maxwell and her husband settled down in Gilford, the conservative New Hampshire lake town where Maxwell grew up. At age six, Greta began asking to wear pink sneakers and dresses. Though Maxwell and her husband were supportive, she feared the response from their neighbors, based on wounds from her own childhood and memories of the bullying her gay brother endured. Parents soon began lobbying the school board to force trans students to use bathrooms corresponding to their biological sex, attacking Maxwell’s parenting in the process. As Maxwell and her husband fought back, they grew increasingly distant from each other and from their community; by the time the school board approved protections for trans students, it felt to Maxwell like a “false promise.” Greta, however, came out of the situation largely unscathed, and her resilience helped Maxwell locate a “deep, magical power” within herself. Maxwell’s stunning candor and brisk prose make her family’s struggles feel heart-wrenchingly immediate. This is required reading. Agent: Eleanor Jackson, Dunow, Carlson & Lerner Literary.