Howey, Noelle

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HOWEY, Noelle

PERSONAL: Born in OH; daughter of Dick and Dinah Howey; married; children: one daughter. Education: Oberlin College, B.A., 1994.

ADDRESSES: Home—Minneapolis, MO. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Picador USA, 175 5th Ave., New York, NY 10010.

CAREER: National Public Radio, Cleveland, OH, reporter and producer; Cleveland Free Times, Cleveland, book reviewer.

MEMBER: Phi Beta Kappa.

AWARDS, HONORS: Nonfiction fellowship, New York Foundation for the Arts, 2001; two Lambda literary awards, 2001.

WRITINGS:

(Editor, with Ellen Samuels) Out of the Ordinary: Essays on Growing up with Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Parents, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2000.

Dress Codes: Of Three Girlhoods—My Mother's, My Father's, and Mine (memoir), Picador USA (New York, NY), 2002.

Contributor to periodicals, including Advocate, Seventeen, Jane, Ms., Mademoiselle, Glamour, Teen People, Brooklyn Bridge, Mother Jones, Self, and Bitch.

SIDELIGHTS: Noelle Howey is coeditor, with Ellen Samuels of Out of the Ordinary: Essays on Growing Up with Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Parents, a volume called "a rare gem" by Ms. writer Chelsea Cain. The book's twenty contributors, six of whom write under pseudonyms, include essays about their relationships with their parents, the details of their lives, and their parents' relationships with their own partners. They include a mother who had a relationship with a nun, a father who died of AIDS, parents who relied on hormones to change their appearance, and others who involved their child in their activism. Cain felt that the book is valuable not because it is about growing up with parents with a certain sexual preference but because "it is about growing up with parents—and the embarrassment, frustration, devotion, and redemption of childhood." Booklist contributor Ray Olson commented that "parental love—family values, if you will—counts more than sociosexual conformity. And so do the intelligence and the character of the child who radiates from each of these pieces."

Howey is herself the daughter of a transgender parent. Her father, Dick, whom she recalls in her memoir, Dress Codes: Of Three Girlhoods—My Mother's, My Father's, and Mine, as being distant and cool during her childhood, became "kinder, nicer, tidier, better with children, interested in flowers and birds and chick flicks" once he came to terms with his sexuality. Howey describes her own difficult adolescence and her parents' failing marriage before Dick Howey began his transformation to become Christine. As Daniel M. Jaffe wrote in the Lambda Book Report, "the significance of Dick's inner turmoil is never downplayed, but is shown in the context of other family struggles with identity." Writing in the Advocate, Etelka Lehoczky noted that Howey "has crafted a classic tale of coming of age, queer and otherwise, in America.

Howey's mother, Dinah, knew her husband was a cross-dresser, a fact she revealed in confidence to her daughter when she was fourteen, and he had never been enthusiastic about having sex with her. Soon after, Dick moved out of the family home and began the counseling, treatments, and instructions necessary for his transformation. When Noelle was a freshman in college, her now-divorced parents threw a coming-out party, and four years later, Howey accompanied Christine to Belgium where she had her sex-change surgery. Dinah later remarried. Booklist contributor Kristine Huntley commented that Howey's book "will appeal to readers not just as a story of transgenderism but also simply as the story of a family that has to redefine itself." Sheila Shoup said in School Library Journal, "with her sharp humor and sensitivity, Howey manages to entertain, console, and enlighten readers. The book is impossible to ignore, and impossible to put down."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Howey, Noelle, Dress Codes: Of Three Girlhoods—My Mother's, My Father's, and Mine, Picador USA (New York, NY), 2002.

PERIODICALS

Advocate, June 11, 2002, Etelka Lehoczky, "Fancy Dress: Noelle Howey Has a Ball in a Memoir of Gender, Femininity, and Family," review of Dress Codes, p. 67.

Booklist, June 1, 2000, Ray Olson, review of Out of the Ordinary: Essays on Growing Up with Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Parents, p. 1807; May 15, 2002, Kristine Huntley, review of Dress Codes, p. 1559.

Kirkus Reviews, February 1, 2002, review of Dress Codes, p. 160.

Lambda Book Report, May, 2002, Daniel M. Jaffe, review of Dress Codes, p. 21.

Library Journal, October 1, 2000, Linda Beck, review of Out of the Ordinary, p. 136; April 1, 2002, Sheila Devaney, review of Dress Codes, p. 128.

Ms., August-September, 2000, Chelsea Cain, review of Out of the Ordinary, p. 84.

New Yorker, September 29, 2003, Kate Taylor, "Gender Benders," review of Dress Codes, p. 27.

Publishers Weekly, July 10, 2000, review of Out of the Ordinary, p. 53; February 25, 2002, review of Dress Codes, p. 49.

School Library Journal, August, 2002, Sheila Shoup, review of Dress Codes, p. 223.

Washington Post Book World, May 5, 2002, Ellen Emry Heltzel, review of Dress Codes, p. T15.