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Her Thursday-through-Saturday schedule was meant for women
over 21; that was the legal age for dancing as a stripper in
a Waikiki clubs, but the proprietress of the club jokingly
offered to “give” Mock two of her own birthdays, and that
was that: Mock was a dancer, albeit a self-conscious one.
She was afraid that someone could spot her secret from the
bar rail.
At a very young age, Mock knew she was a girl in a boy’s
body. Her mother looked the other way while Mock wore
feminine clothing and grew out her hair, and she ignored
when Mock started taking female hormones as an adolescent.
After saving every penny, Mock flew to Bangkok to finalize
her transition at eighteen; months later, she realized that
nobody saw her as anything but a pretty black woman.
But the club, well, money was good there and she settled in.
She sometimes made a cool grand a week, and she didn’t have
to sleep with customers; the club’s owner, in fact, urged
her girls not to do so. “Love can wait,” she’d said, but
when Mock met the man she’d ultimately marry, there was no
reason not to take the plunge.
He was a Navy man who took Mock’s truth in stride, but the
two grew apart: Mock quit dancing before she quit the
marriage to move to New York City to attend college, where
she felt empowered as a woman in control of her life. She
made friends, decided what she wanted to do with her life,
landed the job of her dreams and, “I was home.”
Filled with florid prose and swoony drama, Surpassing
Certainty is one of those memoirs that feels like a long
conversation.
That can be a good thing, and it can be bad.
In speaking directly to readers, author Janet Mock offers an
aura of girlfriendship. We’re privy to many details – maybe
even too many – and the information is meted out as if we’re
all Sex-in-the-City in a bistro somewhere on a Sunday
afternoon.
And yet, this conversation doesn’t seem to have a point.
Mock writes at great length about stripping. She tells about
her many loves, fusses too much about her appearance, and
shares thoughts about men that reflect her youth at the
time. Except for a juicy admission of omission in her last
book, this seemed like a lot of navel-gazing.
Heavy sigh.
If you read Mock’s first memoir and are eager for more, by
all means, find this one because you’ll love it. For most
readers, though, Surpassing Certainty may not
completely impress.
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