Author Edward Ball reads and signs Peninsula of Lies, a biography of Dawn Langley Simmons

Wednesday, March 17, 7:30 p.m. Perkins Library Rare Book Room

Edward Ball, National Book Award-winning author of "Slaves in the Family," will read and sign his new book, "Peninsula of Lies," a biography of Dawn Langley Simmons. Ball tells the intriguing story of Simmons, who was born in England as a boy named Gordon Langley Hall but died in the United States as a woman. Hall came to the U.S. when he was in his twenties, first living in New York City but later moving to Charleston, S.C. In 1968 at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, Hall�s life took a dramatic turn when he underwent one of the first sex-reassignment surgeries. Ball skillfully draws the reader into his search for the truth about the life of Hall/Simmons in a book that reads like an old-fashioned mystery. Sponsored by the Duke University Libraries.