Though the title
character of David Ebershoff's debut novel is a transsexual, the
book is less concerned with transgender issues than the mysterious
and ineffable nature of love. Loosely based on the life of Danish
painter Einar Wegener who, in 1931, became the first man to
undergo a sex-change operation, The Danish Girl borrows the
bare bones of his story as a jumping-off point for an exploration
of how Wegener's decisions affected the people around him. Chief
among these is his Californian wife, Greta, also a painter, who
unwittingly sets her husband's feet on the path to transformation.
While trying to finish a portrait of an opera singer who has
cancelled a sitting, she asks Einar to stand in for her subject,
putting on her dress, stockings, and shoes. The moment silk
touches his skin, he is shaken:
Einar could concentrate only on the silk dressing
his skin, as if it were a bandage. Yes, that was how it felt the
first time: the silk was so fine and airy that it felt like a
gauze--a balm-soaked gauze lying delicately on healing skin.
Even the embarrassment of standing before his wife began to no
longer matter, for she was busy painting with a foreign
intensity in her face. Einar was beginning to enter a shadowy
world of dreams where Anna's dress could belong to anyone, even
to him.
Greta soon recognizes her husband's affinity for
feminine attire, and encourages him not only to dress like a
woman, but to take on a woman's persona, as well. "Why don't
we call you Lili?" she suggests. What starts out as a
harmless game soon evolves into something deeper, and potentially
threatening to their marriage. Yet Greta's love proves to be
enduring if not immutable. As Einar inexorably transforms, he
steps beyond "that small dark space between two people where
a marriage exists" and Greta lets him go.
Ebershoff does a remarkable job of historical
prestidigitation, creating the sights and sounds and smells of
1930s Denmark and making it seem easy. Even more remarkable is his
treatment of Greta: he gets inside her head and heart, and renders
her in such loving detail that her reactions make perfect sense.
Einar is more of a cipher, and ultimately less interesting than
his wife. But in the end, this is Greta's book and David Ebershoff
has done her proud. The Danish Girl marks a promising
fictional debut. --Sheila Bright
The
Danish Girl 
