She Wants It

Starred review from August 27, 2018
This intimate, funny memoir from Soloway, the creator of the Amazon TV series Transparent, is many things at once: a behind-the-scenes look at the entertainment industry, a sometimes tumultuous but ultimately positive coming-out narrative, a wry and reflective family history, a cri de coeur about gender-based societal strictures, and a success story of, after some missteps, building a workplace culture around allyship. Soloway, who is nonbinary and uses the pronoun they, identified as female when they created Transparent—a show about a Jewish family managing life after the revelation that the person family members knew as their father and husband identifies as a woman—based on their own then-recent experiences with the parent they now call “Moppa.” Soloway explicitly addresses the backlash regarding the casting of cis man Jeffrey Tambor as transwoman Maura—Soloway originally chose him because of the resemblance he bore to their moppa, Carrie—and their handling of accusations of sexual harassment by Tambor. But this is more than just a showbiz chronicle; it’s a personal reflection, and Soloway shows incredible warmth toward almost everyone in their circle and toward their past self, even when it’s clear they’re looking back on professional or romantic choices they would not have made in retrospect. Soloway’s sharp humor carries the day in an unusually kind and self-aware memoir that will both make readers laugh and leave them optimistic.

September 15, 2018
Soloway's memoir chronicles the author's life during the creation of Transparent, the TV series Soloway writes, directs, and produces about a parent's transition. Inspired by Soloway's own parent coming out as trans, the show led to wild success, Emmy wins, and a personal sexual and gender revolution for Soloway (who now identifies as a gender-nonconforming person) and tied into the cultural revolution of #metoo. Soloway (Tiny Ladies in Shiny Pants, 2005) writes with self-awareness about their jealousy of more successful peers; their messy divorce; the integration of their life into the show's story lines; and their mistakes and triumphs. Their production company implemented a transfirmative action program to make up for the sin of casting a cisgender male in the lead. By season four, trans people were in the cast, the writers' room, and every other department of the show. This is an honest look at Soloway's mind-opening journey, which allowed for deeper understanding of Hollywood's patriarchy as well as of the author's own gender, art, and self.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

May 15, 2018

The Emmy and Golden Globe Award-winning creator of Transparent, Soloway stares down key issues of love, sexuality, identity, and male-defined Hollywood power while contemplating what it's like to have a parent come out as transgender.

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from September 1, 2018
An adroit memoir from the creator of Transparent.Soloway grew up with a father who "was either hiding out, depressed, or working," along with a tough mother and a sister who came out long ago even as the author "stayed a straightbian and tilted toward artsiness and weed." So far, an ordinary American family, until one day her father called to say that he was trans. "I had the wrong pronouns then and have only some of the right pronouns now but will use the wrong ones so you can see how wrong I had it," writes the author, the ordinariness having given way to something new. Having written for the HBO series Six Feet Under and crafted the indie film Afternoon Delight, Soloway was well-placed to make the difficult sell for a series that leveraged some of her own experience and that of many other people--namely, Transparent, which proved a hit for Amazon as it was launching its own independent production business. There was a lot to learn, Soloway writes, and readers new to the complexities of nonbinary gender will find new things on every page thanks to the author's sharp observations of the world, as when seeing a young man on a Vermont street wearing a sundress: "The same homeless kid, were they female but wearing a man's scruffy pants and shirt, wouldn't attract a second look. They might be exactly the same amount genderqueer, but the one who seemed to be male in women's clothing was alarming in the way a woman in men's clothing would not be." There's a lot to chew on in such things, and Soloway's meditations become more complex, some of it in the shadow of the unfolding #MeToo movement. A helpful takeaway comes late in the book: "You're not in trouble and you haven't done anything wrong."An assumption-exploding, smart account of creativity, work, and a decidedly unconventional life.

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