Lambda Literary Foundation director Charles Flower (left) greets Aaron Raz Link and his mother, Hilda Raz, at the foundation’s evennt for their joint memoir, What Becomes You, held Monday night at Manhattan’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center. Raz told GalleyCat party correspondent Karen Schechner that she and her son were “smart but not photogenic,” then poked fun at his wardrobe selection. The memoir reveals their perspectives on how Raz’s daughter, Sarah, realized that she was transgendered and gradually came into her own as Aaron.
“What made the reading,” Schechner reports, “was that Raz is a well-known academic in women’s and gender studies (as well as an editor at Prairie Schooner), while Link’s writing is more comedic than tragic and travelogue than melodramatic monologue—they were a dynamic duo. The Q&A covered transphobia within the LGBT community, particularly for Aaron who identifies as a gay man, but isn’t always accepted as such, and life at clown school, where he was sent by drag queen friends.”
Other authors in the audience included Perry Brass, Robert Cabell, and Alison Smith. (In the interest of full disclosure, we should also mention that Karen is a volunteer editor at the foundation’s Lambda Book Report.)