LOS ANGELES — On a warm September evening in the Hollywood Hills, guests at a book party for the writer Susan Faludi sipped prosecco and munched on lotus root chips in the courtyard of the Spanish-style home of the journalist Steve Oney and his wife, the interior designer Madeline Stuart. Book people mixed with movie people: Under a dense black acacia tree, the writer Amy Wilentz chatted with the television producer Nicole Yorkin; the historian Ed Larson rubbed elbows with the film producer Sean Daniel at the bar.

Just before dusk, Ms. Faludi, a slight, almost spectral figure in a black sweater, black slacks and black flats, took her place on a landing overlooking the patio. She introduced the passage she had chosen to read from her new book — a memoir titled “In the Darkroom,” which, it quickly became clear, explores thematic territory less readily associated with Pulitzer Prizes (one of which she has already earned) than, lately at least, with Golden Globe Awards.

“In the summer of 2004, I received an email from my father with the subject line ‘Changes,’” she began, her soft voice occasionally drowned out by cars racing up the canyon. “My father lived in Hungary, and it was the first communication I’d received from him in many years. He said he had some interesting news for me. He had decided, at the age of 76, that he’d had enough of, quote, impersonating a macho, aggressive man. There was a series of snapshots attached to the message. The first one showed my father standing in a hospital lobby in a sleeveless blouse and red skirt. Beside him were, as he wrote in the note, ‘the other post-op girls’ — two patients who were also making ‘the change.’”