Self-Made Man: One Woman's Journey into Manhood and Back

The disguise that former Los Angeles Times op-ed columnist Vincent employed to trick dozens of people into believing her a man was carefully thought out: a new, shorter haircut; a pair of rectangular eyeglasses; a fake five o'clock shadow; a prosthetic penis; some preppy clothes. It was more than she needed. "[A]s I became more confident in my disguise... the props I had used... became less and less important, until sometimes I didn't need them at all," Vincent writes. Gender marking, she found, is more about attitude than appearance. Vincent's account of the year and a half she spent posing as a man is peppered with such predictable observations.  

Carrie Brooks left her home, her job, her very existence, to run away with a murder suspect, a man whose only prior introduction to her was as her kidnapper. She has no reason at all to trust him. After all, he’s the enemy—isn’t he?
Felipe Salazar’s been in disguise for so long, he’s not even sure who he is anymore. But he knows two things: he’s innocent. And he’s waited all his life for someone like Carrie....