Gordon becomes Dawn...

In September 2000, Dawn Simmonds was cremated in Charleston, South Carolina. Her husband was not present at the memorial service, but her daughter took the ashes. It was at this service that the biographer Edward Ball decided to investigate the strange life of Mrs Simmonds - who until 1968 had been a man.

It is a bizarre story, wonderfully told, with the right blend of gossip and research. By the end of the book I felt I understood Dawn, aka Gordon, and I wished I had met her - a sure sign that this biography had succeeded in its aims of intimacy and revelation.

Gordon Langley Hall was born in 1922, the illegitimate son of two servants at Sissinghurst Castle, home of Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson. Neither parent wanted to raise him; he was brought up by his grandmother.

He was a sensitive boy, acutely aware of the unusual marital arrangements of his parents' employers - Vita had her women, and Harold had his boys. In later life, he would talk about meeting Virginia Woolf and declare that he was the copy of Woolf 's famous Orlando - a shape-shifting, sexchanging creature, modelled on Vita.

Gordon, nicknamed Dinky, was only 5ft 6ins tall and too delicate for national service. After the war he went to New York, where he began to make a living as a journalist. Here he attracted the attention of the heiress Isabelle Whitney, who seems to have made a pet of him, and left him a substantial fortune.

In 1962 the newly rich Gordon arrived in Charleston to renovate his inherited mansion.

The American Dream is not just about getting rich, it is about re-inventing yourself, which is exactly what Gordon did, with radical results. He was fascinated by the Bloomsbury Group, whose country headquarters were in Charleston, Sussex.

He could never belong there, but in Charleston, South Carolina, he could tell his story however he liked. He was not a liar as such - simply he wanted the truth to be more glamorous than it was.

He sold antiques. He filled his house with dogs and cats and flowers. It seems he had discreet liaisons with various men. Then he fell in love with a 19-year-old black mechanic called John Paul Simmonds.

John Paul was not gay, but he was tempted by wealth and friendship. Both men ran huge risks living together in a town that was segregated and proud of it. Then, in 1968, Gordon disappeared for a couple of weeks and returned as Dawn. As Dawn he announced his marriage to John Paul.

Charleston seems to have collapsed under the weight of this triple blow to its high standards - Gordon dated men, then he dated a black man, then he changed sex and married his black man.