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

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.