Sex Changes
“Christine Benvenuto pulls us into the eddies of heartbreak, confusion, anger, and epiphany that swirl in the wake of her shattered marriage. Benvenuto, like the best of memoirists, has that clear, true voice that transforms her story into my story—the details are different, but not the emotions. And as she makes her way through uncharted waters, discovering unseen facets of herself, I, too, make discoveries about myself. This is the power of storytelling at its best.”
Sally Ryder Brady, New York Times bestselling author of A Box of Darkness: The Story of a Marriage
What do you do when the other woman is your husband?
Christine Benvenuto had been married for more than twenty years-with three young children-when her husband turned to her one night in bed and said, "I'm thinking constantly about my gender." Unhappy in his body, he wanted to become a woman.
Part memoir, part voyeur's look into a marriage, Sex Changes is a journey through the end of a marriage and out the other side. We see a mother, desperate to save her family and shelter her children, discover a well of strength and resilience she never knew she had. We learn what to tell the neighbors when your husband starts wearing heels with his shirts and ties. We see a woman open herself up to a group of friends who travel with her through her darkest times, offering light, levity, and the opportunity to learn how to give as well as receive the love and support of true friendship. As she loses her husband to skirts and hormones, life makes Chris a better woman.
Sex Changes is the story of what one woman discovered about herself in the midst of the conflagration of her family. Fiercely funny, self-lacerating, and not entirely politically correct, this book is a journey of love and anguish told with hilarity, heartbreak, and a lot of soul searching. It is about the mysteries in every marriage, the secrets we choose to keep, and the freedom that the truth can bring.
Praise