It would take quite a story to live up to the melodramatic title of Edward Ball's Peninsula of Lies: A True Story of Mysterious Birth and Taboo Love. Fortunately for the reader, the bizarre and highly compelling tale of Gordon Langley Hall and his transformation into Dawn Langley Hall is quite a story indeed. Novelists couldn't have dreamed up a more fascinating central character than Hall. Born the son of British servants, Hall, as a boy, befriended Virginia Woolf and her lover Vita Sackville-West. As a young man, he made his way to New York, becoming a biographer of some society figures and endearing himself to others including heiress Isabel Whitney who left him an inheritance that allowed him to move to Charleston, South Carolina, and gain entry to the colorful world of Southern society. In 1968, Hall underwent a sex change operation, claiming that the procedure was corrective and that she had actually possessed female sexual organs all along. Further complicating matters for the people of Charleston was Dawn's marriage to a young black mechanic and the appearance of an infant daughter. Author Edward Ball (Slaves in the Family) first came into contact with Hall through a uncover more about her. Although it is a biography of Hall, Peninsula of Lies is also equal parts mystery as Ball tracks down key figures from Hall's life, attempts to separate truth from legend and find the points at which the two intersect. As the facts of her life are brought into the light, Hall's psychology and motivation become more inscrutable and we are left with more questions than answers. Edward Ball's investigative persistence is tempered by a kindness toward his interview subjects, which, combined with his rich descriptions of 1960s Southern living, make Peninsula of Lies a lively read. But it is the impression left by the enigmatic Dawn Langley Hall that is sure to linger after the book is over. --John Moe
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