The Danish Girl [Paperback]

His book is loosely based upon the true story of Danish painters, Einar Wegener and Gerda Waud. They met in Copenhagen, while they were both art students, and married a few years later. He painted landscapes, while she would become known for her paintings of a mysterious sloe-eyed beauty. When it eventually became known that the model for the mysterious beauty in Gerda's paintings was, in fact, her cross-dressing husband, they became the scandal of Copenhagen. They left Denmark and sought refuge in Paris, France, where the mystery woman of Gerda's paintings began appearing in the flesh among the denizens of the Parisian demi-monde.

There is little doubt that Gerda encouraged her husband in his cross-dressing, as well as in his eventual surgical transformation. In 1930, the couple again turned the world on its head when it became known that Einar Wegener had undergone the world's first known sex re-assignment operation in Germany, and emerged as Lili Elbe. This provoked the King of Denmark himself to annul their marriage. Unfortunately, Lili Elbe's life as a surgically transformed woman ended in 1931 with her death.

The author expertly weaves these facts, which were the inspiration for this novel, into a lyrically written, haunting narrative about two people who were bound to each other by an unconditional love that would transcend the conventional. He creates an intriguing, spellbinding story that is a sensitive portrait of a most unusual marriage. The author takes the reader on a journey into the imagined psyche of these two individuals, as their marriage slowly devolves and Lili becomes more and more prominent in their lives. The author leads the reader through Lili's gradual metamorphosis, her poignant self-realization, and the final denouement of the marriage. This is an exquisitely crafted novel by a very gifted writer. Bravo!

Ebershoff's perspective of Greta's and Einar's/Lili's relationship is coolly cerebral and unsentimental. Even the strange bleeding phenomenon that visits Einar/Lili is treated in the most clear-eyed and unsensational way. Unafraid to explore the subterranean realms of human consciousness, his dare and genius is to make us believe the impossible, that love can transcend the inversion of a normal conjugal relationship. Which wife would ask her husband to slip into a woman's shoes if only for a pose ......unless she senses - albeit subconsciously - something essentially female about his inner self ? Right through the early stages of Einar's transformation into Lili, it almost seems like Greta is coaxing Lili out of Einar's closet without a thought for the implications of their relationship. With Lili out in the open, Einar's personality withdraws, grows indistinct and then disappears. Only when Lili finally emerges and falls in love does Greta recognise that the Einar/Greta relationship has unalterably ended.

Ebershoff's curious tale of an unusual love is genuinely heartwarming and never less than absorbing. It is also relentlessly sad and true. A beautifully written novel.