Earth As It Is

By Jan Maher

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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Release date: Jan 23, 2017
• ISBN: 9780253024107

Jan Maher

Jan Maher's novel Earth As It Is was named a Best Indie of 2017 by Kirkus Reviews and was American Fiction Awards 2018 LGBT Award Winner. Her novel Heaven, Indiana garnered Best Indie of 2018 designation from Kirkus Reviews. Her play Most Dangerous Women has been produced in dozens of venues in fourteen states since its debut performance in Seattle in 1990. Her books for educators and community activists include Most Dangerous Women: Bringing History to Life through Readers' Theater and History in the Present Tense (co-authored with Doug Selwyn). She lives in Greenfield, MA with her husband Doug Selwyn where she is a co-coordinator of The LAVA Center, an arts incubator, black-box theater, and community gathering space in downtown Greenfield. A retired educator, Maher holds a PhD from The Union Institute and University in Interdisciplinary Studies and is a senior scholar at the Institute for Ethics in Public Life, State University of New York at Plattsburgh.