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Peninsula of Lies The Book Nook |
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Peninsula of Lies: A True Story of Mysterious Birth and Taboo Love by Edward Ball; Simon & Schuster, 277 pages; $24.00  Dawn Langley Simmons (1922-2000) was one of the last century's most intriguing characters. An illegitimate child, Gordon Langley Hall was raised as the son of servants at Sissinghurst Castle, home of bisexual authors Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson.
In the 1940's Gordon moved to America, where he began a career as an author and journalist and as the protégé of heiress Isabel Whitney. When Whitney died she left much of her fortune to Gordon, who took the money and ran to Charleston, South Carolina. There, Gordon shone as a socialite, antique dealer, and author of fluff biographies of famous women like Jacqueline Kennedy and Lady Bird Johnson. This idyll ended suddenly in 1968, when Gordon had sex-reassignment surgery and became Dawn Langley Hall. Dawn insisted that she always had female organs, and got the operation only to correct what was already there. Though Charleston society might have been able to tolerate the transsexual in their midst, it was outraged when Dawn went on to marry John-Paul Simmons, a young, working-class, Black, man. Soon after that Dawn Simmons declared herself to be pregnant and later claimed to be the mother of a lovely, bi-racial child, Natasha. Dawn's life went downhill all the way after that, as she was ostracized by white Charleston society while her schizophrenic husband spent away her fortune. Dawn and her family then moved to upstate New York, where they lived for many years before she and Natasha returned to Charleston, where Dawn died in 2000. The life of Gordon Langley Hall/Dawn Langley Hall Simmons is the stuff good stories are made of, and in fact she has been written about quite often; both by herself and by other authors. Historian James T. Sears devoted a chapter of Lonely Hunters: An Oral History of Lesbian and Gay Southern Life, 1948-1968 to Dawn Simmons. Now Edward Ball, author of the award-winning Slaves in the Family (about his own bi-racial ancestry), has written a full-length biography of this enigmatic character. Actually, Peninsula of Lies tells two stories: that of Dawn Simmons herself and that of Ball's own search for her true story. The title Peninsula of Lies refers to Charleston, South Carolina, built on a peninsula between the Ashley and Cooper Rivers. But it also refers to Dawn herself, whose entire life has been, in one way or another, "a tissue of lies." Dawn Simmons once described her adopted home as "a city with Gothic tastes, and what they don't know, they make up." Ball doubtlessly hopes that Peninsula of Lies would do for Charleston what John Berendt's Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil did for Savannah, Georgia. No such luck. While Berendt dealt with an assortment of Savannah characters, Ball only deals with one character, Dawn Langley Simmons. A better comparison would be if Berendt had written an entire book about The Lady Chablis, a much more interesting and likeable character than Mrs. Simmons. (La Chablis later wrote her own autobiography.) I doubt Charleston tour buses would be taking tourists to see Dawn's 1960's home, the way that Savannah tour buses take tourists to see the various spots showcased in Midnight in the Garden. While Peninsula of Lies eventually comes around to revealing the apparent truth about Dawn's original gender, sexuality and maternity - and you will have to buy the book to find out - it is not a satisfactory biography. Ball writes in great length about his research methods, which is interesting at times (Ball's successful search for the missing John-Paul Simmons is a good example) but which is too often plain boring. We don't need to know all about Ball's experiences doing research at the Special Collections Library of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. And Ball goes on and on about the history and types of transgendered people, much of which has small bearing on the story at hand. After reading all 270+ pages, the reader will come out wanting to know more about Dawn Simmons and less about Edward Ball. Dawn Langley Simmons had many faults. She was a pathological liar who used her limited literary and social talents to use and abuse other people, including the husband and the daughter whom she claimed to love. Her obsessive pursuit of John-Paul Simmons (today we would call this "stalking") was disastrous and ruined both of their lives. On the other hand, Natasha Simmons still speaks kindly of her mother, which tells us that Dawn must have done something right, at least as a mother. But her tale still commands out attention, and eventually a writer will come around who will do it justice. By the same token, a social history of Charleston, one that includes Dawn Langley Simmons, will be written; and it will be an interesting book. Sadly, Peninsula of Lies is neither. My Favorite Book
I recently asked the Rev. Grant Lynn ford, Senior Minister of the Sunshine Cathedral Metropolitan Community Church in Fort Lauderdale, to contribute his favorite book to this column. Though Rev. Ford did not send me the information about his favorite book, he wrote a column about it which appeared in the August 26 issue of twn (The Weekly News), South Florida's Gay Community Newspaper.
Rev. Ford's favorite book, for those who are keeping track, is Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss (Gotham Books), "To say the least, it's an absolute delight to read more than 200 pages on the topic of punctuation," he wrote. If you want to see both you and your favorite book in print, please send the relevant information directly to me at jessemonteagudo@aol.com . Subject: "Book Nook Favorite Book."
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Jesse Monteagudo is a freelance writer and gay book lover who lives in South Florida with his life partner. Write him a note at © 1997-2008 BEI
The sexual orientation of individuals pictured in and writers for
Gay Today should not be assumed.
