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THE FIRST MAN-MADE MAN

Name: THE FIRST MAN-MADE MAN
Author: Pagan Kennedy
ISBN: 1-59691-015-1

THE STORY OF TWO SEX CHANGES, ONE LOVE AFFAIR, AND A TWENTIETH-CENTURY MEDICAL REVOLUTION

by Pagan Kennedy ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 6, 2007

Sheds welcome light on the changes in society’s attitudes and in scientific thinking about gender.

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The revealing story of an Oxford graduate named Laura Dillon, who secretively transformed herself into a man several years before Christine Jorgensen made “transsexual” a household word.

While primarily a biography, the book also traces the history of scientists’ evolving ideas about what it means to be male or female. Kennedy (Confessions of a Memory Eater, July 2006, etc.) makes use of Dillon’s own writings and those of other transsexuals; she consulted plastic surgeons, members of the transgendered community and a Buddhist monk who was Dillon’s mentor in India. The author writes vividly of Dillon’s struggle with her sexuality at Oxford in the 1930s and of the social and legal constraints she faced while making the transition from female to male. She began taking testosterone pills in 1938 and was attending medical school as Michael Dillon when she learned of the revolutionary work being done by plastic surgeons to repair wartime injuries. From 1946 to 1949, she underwent 13 operations to get a penis. In 1951, Michael Dillon (now legally male) proposed marriage to Roberta Cowell, a man-turned-woman who did not return his affection and turned him down. Dillon became a ship’s doctor and in 1954, when Cowell’s sensational autobiography threatened to out him, signed up for a four-year stint ferrying pilgrims to Mecca. He eventually fled to India to find anonymity and study meditation. Adopting a new name, Lobsang Jivaka, he planned to take vows as a monk. At the time of his death in 1962, he was working on his memoirs, which would have been the first by a female-to-male transsexual.

Sheds welcome light on the changes in society’s attitudes and in scientific thinking about gender.

Pub Date: March 6, 2007

ISBN: 1-59691-015-1

Page Count: 224

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2006

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE RAPE KIT
by Pagan Kennedy

- BOOK REVIEW
INVENTOLOGY
by Pagan Kennedy

- BOOK REVIEW
CONFESSIONS OF A MEMORY EATER
by Pagan Kennedy

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.