FAIREST: A Memoir
by Meredith Talusan
Viking. 320 pages, $27.
“YOU LOOK the same,” a former classmate tells Meredith Talusan at her 20th Harvard College reunion, despite the fact the award-winning journalist who was “Marc” as an undergraduate has transitioned to “Meredith” in the intervening years. Later that same day, Talusan peeks into her* old lodging in Adams House, an opulent building once referred to as the “Gold Coast apartments,” because the richest young men resided there. Her former dorm room, located next to FDR’s when he was at Harvard, beckons. Talusan crosses the threshold and becomes bewitched when she glimpses a reflection in the bathroom mirror. Is it possible, she wonders, to identify some part of a man staring back, despite all the sacrifices she made to transition?
Court Stroud works in Spanish-language media and lives in New York.