Synopses & Reviews
In this searingly honest LGBQT+ memoir, Maeve DuVally tells the story of coming out transgender in one of the most high-profile financial institutions in America, Goldman Sachs.
When Maeve DuVally came out as a transgender woman while working as a corporate communications manager at one of the most renowned financial institutions in America, she knew she couldn't do it quietly. She was, after all, the face of Goldman Sachs. DuVally intimately documents her struggle to be herself in this environment, initially keeping her identity a secret with wardrobe changes in the lobby bathroom after work. Eventually she declares herself and, to her surprise, Goldman Sachs embraces the effort. Surgery follows. When DuVally finally takes those first steps on heels through the corridors of this institution on the way to her first meeting with her team as a woman, the reader cheers. A New York Times story helped DuVally realize she could become a role model for other transgender people in corporations and branded Goldman Sachs as a model for corporations assisting their transitioning employees. Before she found her courage, DuVally's life was mired in depression and unconscious struggle. Raised in an Irish Catholic family with a sadistic pathologist father, her upbringing dropped her — already damaged and feeling separate — into an adulthood plagued by alcoholism. After a decade in Japan, she returns to the US and prospers as a journalist and bank communications specialist. Yet throughout, her personal life is in shambles, leaving two marriages and three children in her wake. At Goldman Sachs in New York, she ascends to a top communications position before her drinking begins to encroach upon her work. Finally, DuVally hits bottom, becoming sober after a lifetime in and out of AA and rehab. Clear at last, she begins to understand the source of her lifelong struggle and takes the bold step to become the woman she is now.
Review
"This is Maeve DuVally's heartbreaking, brave,
and triumphant story of coming out as a transgender person not just in
corporate America, but on Wall Street, and not just on Wall Street, but at
Goldman Sachs. It would be important reading at any time, but in the times in
which we live, it's essential." Bethany McLean, co-author of The
Smartest Guys in the Room
WINNER OF THE 2023 NEW YORK BOOK FESTIVAL COMPETITION: MEMOIR
Review
"Maeve Rising is the unflinchingly honest story of Michael, whose anxieties
and self-destructive tendencies sabotage every facet of his life: family,
friends, career. That is, until Michael discovers her true self as Maeve. This
book is important for vividly relating the difficult trans journey toward
self-acceptance. But as importantly, it made me appreciate the
complexities and difficulties that some of our colleagues bear alone, that
could be borne so much more lightly or eliminated if they feel they have the
support to show up for work as their authentic selves." Lloyd Blankfein,
former Chairman and CEO, Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.
Review
"Maeve
DuVally, whom I used to know as Michael DuVally from Goldman Sachs, has written
a courageous and compelling memoir about her literal and metaphorical
transformation, from a man to a woman, from drunkenness to sobriety, from a
life filled with lies and deceit, to one of honesty and openness. What an
inspiring story." William D. Cohan, author of Power Failure:
The Rise and Fall of an American Icon, Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs
Came to Rule the World; House of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on
Wall Street; The Last Tycoons: The Secret History of Lazard Frères &
Co., The Price of Silence, Why Wall Street Matters,
and Four Friends
About the Author
New York City resident Maeve DuVally is an LGBTQ+ advocate; communications and diversity and inclusion consultant; and a writer. She is a frequent traveler to Japan where she lived for 10 years. She worked as a corporate spokesperson for Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch for twenty years and was a financial journalist before that. A frequent public speaker on workplace diversity, she serves as on the board of multiple non-profits including GLAAD, Anchor Health Initiative, and Trans New York. She mentors transgender people in corporate America.