BOOK REVIEWS

Conundrum by Jan Morris. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich 1974, $5.95

This is really a book review of a book review since I haven't read the original book myself. However, it was reviewed in the N.Y. Times and there was a long article about the author in the N.Y. Times Magazine. As the books may come to the attention of some of you a word about it seemed to be in order.

This is just the latest in quite a series of books by persons who have had "the operation." "Jan" Morris used to be James Morris. He was quite a well known English author having achieved some fame by his interviews with Sir Edmund Hilary and Tensing regarding their victorious conquer- ing of Mt. Everest. He scooped the world on his reporting of that event and actually climbed to an elevation of 22,000 feet himself. Subsequently he won awards for journalism and literature in both England and Amer- ica. He has written 17 other books. So he was a person of some eminence and reputation in these fields.

His story appears very similar to lots of others both so-called TSs and FPs, such as his claim that "from an early age I prayed God everynight to make me a girl." Where have I heard that before? Like many another be- fore him he set out to prove himself a man and apparently did very well at it being sent to America on a Commonwealth Fellowship and to the Middle East by the London Times. During the war he was an officer in a British Cavalry regiment for 5 years. He was married to a woman who turned out to be very understanding and she bore him 4 sons. He appar- ently shared his internal dissatisfactions with her from an early time and she was kept fully informed about the progress of his "change," which took 8 years of hormone treatments, and of the ultimate decision to have the surgery. While they necessarily were divorced after that had occurred, and now occupy two separate establishments, they are still very close

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