18 Months: A Memoir of a Marriage Lost to Gender Identity - Now Available
At amazon.com and brick and mortar stores near you
18 Months is now available on Amazon.com in paperback and ebook and in brick-and-mortar stores near you.
Jonathan Kay of Quillette called it “extraordinary.” Helen Joyce, author of Trans, called it “brilliant.” Luke Harrington, award-winning author of Ophelia Alive, described it as “some of the most beautiful writing I’ve read in years.“ Readers often say they “can’t put it down.” See more reviews at shannonthrace.com.
Shannon is no stranger to alternative lifestyles. Raised by Christian parents in Bluegrass country, she fled to the city, scraped together an education, worked for drag shows and befriended poets and anarchists at clothing-optional parties. By the time she settled into her 14-year relationship with Jamie, she had dated women and experimented with polyamory. So when her husband begins crossdressing, she sees no problem--she enjoys flouting the straight world's pointless rules.
Trouble is brewing, though. Jamie's dive into the world of identity leads to shifting values, sexual dysfunction and a crippling depression. Still deeply in love with the kind, outdoorsy folksinger she once knew, Shannon is committed to working through these challenges. But she is blindsided by the unusual demands of gender dysphoria and learns the hard way that compassion, communication, and even love sometimes just aren’t enough.
18 Months is a fierce defense of love in the face of loss, culminating in self-discovery and reinvention.
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Thank you for sharing your compassionate and intricately told story of the painful loss, step by step, of a beloved partner seduced by a dream. Thank you for your unflinching honesty and for your close observations of the descent of your husband into what can only be seen as a cult. Your book helped me to understand the intense pain of two of my friends' children as they watch their happy marriages dissolve into this delusional unreality. I am so sorry you had this experience, and I watch in horror as it becomes a trend.
This sounds genuinely fascinating.