''I hate my name, I'm thinking of changing it,'' gawky, awkward Candace confesses to the dishy young man who takes the seat next to her at a rowdy Midwestern bar. Handsome, buoyant Brandon Teena knows just what she means.

''Sometimes,'' he says, all casual confidence, ''it helps.'' Sometimes, too, a life not like our own can shine a clear and discomforting light on the hidden recesses of the human heart, and it's hard to think of a life more different, or more illuminating, than the one lived by…