Memoir offers truth without apologies

By Patricia Ho

Lillian Faderman is probably best known for her work in the fields of lesbian studies and feminism. As the author of acclaimed works such as "To Believe in Women" and "Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers," Faderman has previously published books that retell social histories. Her latest work, a memoir titled "Naked in the Promised Land," is a decidedly more personal story.

"I felt that it would be interesting to see how a life comes together, a life that was diverse as mine has been - how one becomes the person one finally is," she said.

"The book is divided into three sections: 'Lilly,' which is the childhood section; 'Lil' which is the young adult part; and 'Lillian,' which is the mature part. My goal was to show how those three parts that seem to be very diverse really fit together."

Born to a single immigrant mother in 1940, Faderman's story is in itself remarkable. Faderman's mother and aunt were the only members of their family to survive the Holocaust. With an impeccable selection of details and vivid characterization, Faderman weaves the story about how, as a young girl, she sought to become an actress to relieve her mother of the drudgery of factory work. During her teenage years, she discovered the lucrative but exploitative trade of posing for "girlie mags" as well as the importance of education. Determined to succeed on her own terms as a woman, Faderman paid her way through college by working as a stripper and eventually earned her doctorate at the University of California, Los Angeles.

While Faderman's previous works have been academic in nature, her memoir reveals the motivations of the person who wrote those books.

"Most of my readers in the past have been people who are interested in women's studies, gay and lesbian studies and ethnic studies," she said. "But here I hope this book will be interesting for everyone, not just to those audiences but for the general reader as well because it is a story about becoming the person that you are. A story about what it means to be born in this country coming from immigrant parents. I want a very broad spectrum of readers as well who would be interested in the subject of becoming and of what it means to be an American."

Faderman acknowledges that some of her experiences and relationships are unconventional and not typically portrayed in mainstream media.

"I'm sure that some readers will be shocked, some readers will be surprised, but I want mostly that readers understand and be inspired," she said. "I hope they'll also find that despite the fact that some of my experiences were really unusual and unique, they'll nevertheless find that there's a way for them to identify, that the struggles I had might not be typical in their specifics, but in their generals, they are typical. How do you define yourself? How do you figure out who you are? How do you become a person that you want to be? What can go wrong and what can go right?"

These are the questions that Faderman answers throughout her memoir. We see how her tumultuous beginnings are shaped by her desire to make a better life for herself and how her choices about her education, her work and her lifestyle lead up to the accomplished English and creative writing professor and mother she is today.

"What I decided was that I didn't want to hold back," she said. "I wanted to tell the truth. I wanted to be absolutely honest, absolutely self-revealing because that would be the only way that my reader will understand what it is I wanted to communicate. There is no holding back here. This is all the way it happened."