Earth as It Is

It's the 1930s in Texas when Charlie Bader comes of age with urges he has struggled with since childhood and does not understand.

After his new bride finds him wearing her own sexy lingerie and leaves him in disgust, he tries to move on. His efforts lead him to Chicago, where he stumbles on a community of cross-dressers and begins to attend their secret soirees.

When Pearl Harbor is bombed, he volunteers for the army, serving as a dentist and trying once again to leave his obsession with soft clothes behind. Instead, his wartime experiences combined with the army's faulty record-keeping lead to his reappearance in the small town of Heaven, Indiana, as Charlene.

There, Charlene opens a beauty shop where Heaven's women safely share their stories and secrets as she shampoos, clips, curls, and combs their hair.

Charlene deftly manages to keep her own story hidden and her sexual desires quiet until she falls in love with a female customer and her life begins to change.

Author: Jan Maher
Publisher: Break Away Book Club Edition
Published: 01/23/2017
Pages: 276
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.70lbs
Size: 8.00h x 5.25w x 0.62d
ISBN: 9780253024046

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 11/14/2016
Booklist 12/01/2016 pg. 33
Foreword 02/13/2017
Kirkus Reviews 10/01/2017 pg. 145

About the Author

Jan Maher is a senior scholar at the Institute for Ethics in Public Life, SUNY Plattsburgh.