BEIJING, March 27 (Xinhuanet) -- U.S. novelist and English professor Jennifer Finney Boylan continues to explore conflicted sexuality in her second memoir, "I'm Looking Through You: Growing Up Haunted." 

    In the poignant but laugh-out-loud story, Boylan writes about her experiences living in a Charles Addams-like Victorian mansion on Philadelphia's Main Line.

    Boylan began writing the book as an exploration of ghostly activity in the home her family purchased when she was a teenager. As the project developed, the writer realized it was hard to chronicle her supernatural experiences without looking inward.

    "As I wrote the book, it became clear to me that the Scooby Doo ghosts, as I call them, were less interesting than the metaphorical ghosts," she said. "While not everybody believes in ghosts, everybody knows what it means to be haunted."

    The author, then named James, concealed her conflicted sexuality, hiding her stash of lingerie in a secret panel in her bedroom. The spooky old house, with footsteps in the attic, clouds of blue mist and a ghostlike figure of an old woman in a mirror, serves as backdrop for an adolescence haunted by gender issues that forced Boylan to keep the nature of her true self hidden. In so doing, she became something of a ghost herself.

    The inner turmoil about which she wrote is now ancient history for Boylan, who detailed her 2000 sex change in the earlier memoir, "She's Not There," her 2002 best-selling memoir about the transition to womanhood that freed her from the decades-long torment of being a female trapped in a male body.

    Today, she lives with her spouse Deedie, their two boys and two Labrador retrievers within a mile of the lake on which Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn starred in the 1982 Academy Award-winning film, "On Golden Pond."

    James Boylan met Deedie (named Grace in the two books) while in college and only told her of his secret about a decade ago, well after they were married. Boylan had hoped that their love would be enough to keep the gender demons at bay. They remain legally married.

    A professor of English at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, Boylan also is the author of the acclaimed novels "The Planets" and "Getting In." The publication of "She's Not There" brought her into the media spotlight. She has made several appearances on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" and has been a guest on "Larry King Live," "Today" and "48 Hours." She also played herself on ABC's "All My Children."

(Agencies)