Charlie/Charlene Bader is a heterosexual cross-dresser who struggles through the humiliating break-up of a marriage, migrates to Chicago during the Depression where s/he discovers a supportive community of cross-dressers, serves as a dentist in World War II, and ultimately ends up in a small town in Indiana, living as a woman and working as a hairdresser. Her life becomes complicated when she realizes she has fallen in love with a customer who does not know of her male identity.
Charlie Bader comes of age in early twentieth century Texas with urges he does not understand but must act on, fear and humiliation his constant companions. When his young wife finds him wearing her lingerie and leaves in disgust, he tries unsuccessfully to put it all behind him. His efforts lead him first to Chicago, where he stumbles into a community of cross dressers and attends their secret soirees, then to service as a dentist in World War II where his experiences of war combined with the Army's faulty record keeping set the stage for his reappearance in the small town of Heaven, Indiana as Charlene.
Charlene opens a beauty shop where Heaven’s women can safely tell her their stories and secrets as she shampoos, clips, curls, and combs their hair. She manages, sometimes with deftness, sometimes in desperation, to keep her own story hidden and her emotions sequestered. Confounding these efforts, Charlene finds herself falling in love with Minnie, a loyal customer. Meanwhile, Minnie is similarly attracted to Charlene, appalled by what she feels is abnormal affection. They muddle through misinterpreted signals and misunderstood anxieties, until Charlene finally comes out to Minnie. Their late-life covert courtship and passion is cut short by Charlene’s death.
The varied and strong reactions to Charlene’s funeral paint a picture of townspeople challenged to the core about their own identities as they struggle to comprehend and to honor their friend. Minnie is sustained in her grief both by their devotion to Charlene and by the secret she will carry of her love with and of Charlie.
Excerpt
HEAVEN, INDIANA 1964
Helen Breck knew something was wrong. Just knew it. Charlene Bader never missed an appointment with a customer. Not in the eighteen years her shop had been open. The women of Heaven counted on Charlene’s Beauty Shop like they counted on social hour at church. She was more faithful than the U.S. mail. But then, even the U.S. mail had been delayed since Saturday by the awful wave of snow and ice storms that had hit. For six nights and five days Heaven had frozen over. It was beautiful in its way, exquisite as a crystal palace, but treacherous.
Of course, Charlene would have cancelled any appointments she had at the beginning of the week when no one could walk or drive safely. The ice and bitter cold made a deadly combination that anyone with sense would know better than to challenge. But now the temperature was climbing, streets and sidewalks were passable, and phones back in service. No, something was definitely wrong.
Helen knocked once on the beauty shop door, twice, waited a minute, then a third time before picking her way back through the sidewalk ice patches to her car. She sat for a moment trying to take deep breaths, tapping her gloved fingers on the steering wheel. She had come to rely on her monthly visit to Charlene as the one time she could speak her mind more or less freely without fear of hearing her words boomerang back on her through the gossip mill. Today, she’d hoped to discuss a new investment opportunity with the hairdresser. No one else in Heaven, including Helen’s husband Lester, even knew she had investments.
The strangeness of Charlene’s shop being locked up tight made her chest tighten. Settle down, she told herself. Maybe…but try as she might, she could not for the life of her think of a way to end that sentence positively.
She put the car in gear and drove the two blocks to Clara’s Kitchen where she borrowed the phone. It was an effort to dial with numb shaky hands, but she managed. There was no answer either at Charlene’s home or at her shop. Helen’s next call was to Harry Hess down at the police station.
Harry tried at first to calm her fears with reason, then thought better of it. Helen was, as everyone knew, a little around the bend. Had been ever since the death of her daughter Melinda a decade earlier. No, it wouldn’t do to perturb Helen Breck. Harry swung by Clara’s Kitchen in his patrol car and, together, he and Helen drove back up the street to Charlene’s Beauty Shop. It remained closed. They drove on to Charlene’s house.
The short walkway from the street to the porch was still quite icy, though Harry noted that there was crusty snow piled on both sides, a sure sign that Charlene had at least tried to keep up with the weather that had dumped white stuff on the town and surrounding area for almost a week.
They made their way carefully. Harry held Helen’s elbow and could feel her nervous tension right through the sleeve of the heavy wool coat she wore. It made him nervous, too.
Having safely gained the porch, Harry rang the doorbell, then knocked. After waiting a respectable time for a response and hearing none, he tested the door. It opened easily, but this in itself was of little concern. No one in Heaven locked doors.
Seeing an empty living room and kitchen, Harry headed down the short hallway to check the bedroom.
Helen’s scream brought him back. Rushing to the sound, he found her pale, shaking, standing in the bathroom over the crumpled form of Charlene Bader, who lay face-down on the floor by a full tub of water, clad in a baby-blue terrycloth bathrobe.
Harry dropped to his knees and rolled her over. He held a hand to her mouth and another to her neck, feeling for signs of life. Charlene’s skin was rough and cold. He felt no breath, no pulse.
Helen shrieked again, and her scream could have been his own. Charlene’s bathrobe had fallen open. Charlene was undeniably dead. And Charlene Bader was undeniably a man.
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Reviews for "Earth As It Is"
Reviewed by Gloria Reiser
11/10/2017
There are books - both fiction and non-fiction - that one may read, ponder and remember for a time, eventually to be shuffled aside by concepts, thought, and ideas encountered and extracted from materials one may subsequently read. “Earth As It Is,” by Jan Mahr, at least for me, is not that kind of story.
I was left speechless, with many thoughts swirling, wanting to learn and know more about the lives of the people of Heaven, IN. The main characters became so real, I feel that I know them and do not want to lose touch. I’m certain I will never forget Charlene/Charlie.
This is a multi-level, multi-faceted novel spanning the 1930's - 1960's, yet speaking eloquently to issues of today. The story explores who we are inside as individuals... the self that resides beyond the surface. I believe “Earth As It Is” would be excellent extracurricular (or curricular, for that matter) reading and discussion material for anyone interested in gender studies. However, I also highly recommend the title for anyone with interest in the complexity and variety of the human condition.
It's one book I will never forget, and though I am not of the habit of reading anything twice. This novel, I probably will.
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