This was a very interesting book about Billy Tipton, a musician in the jazz/swing era who was born a woman but passed as a man almost his entire adult life. It's both fascinating and frustrating trying to dig into how that was possible, and who knew what and when, because he didn't confide in anyone at all.

Nevertheless, the fact that Dorothy Tipton (as Billy was named at birth) started dressing as a man to pursue a career as a musician was definitely known in her home state of Oklahoma and surrounding areas when she started out. As much as a modern reader would expect people in the early part of the 20th century (and in that part of the country) to be up in arms about her cross-dressing, or expose her ruse at any chance, they didn't. Billy was part of the entertainment world, and "show people" had different rules that the average person didn't always understand, but also didn't infringe upon. As Billy found more success as a musician and began moving farther and farther from home, years passed where no one knew his secret. Slowly it became something he really had to take steps to keep hidden, lest he lose everything.

Billy lived with 5 different women over the course of his life, calling them all his wives even though they were never legally married. The women the author spoke to claimed they didn't know Billy's secret, nor did they notice anything amiss in their relationships with him. The truth was revealed when he died, but with very few exceptions, the revelation didn't change how anyone he knew viewed him - he was still remembered as the man they had known, in spite of being physically female. ( )