“Part biography, part cultural history, The First Man-Made Man is a dramatic, revelatory narrative that brightly illuminates the psyche of the first female-to-male.”—Chicago Sun Times
In the 1920s, when Laura Dillon felt like a man trapped in a woman’s body, there were no words to describe her condition; transsexual had yet to enter common usage. And there was no known solution to being stuck between the sexes. In a desperate bid to feel comfortable in her own skin, she experimented with breakthrough technologies that ultimately transformed the human body and revolutionized medicine. Michael Dillon’s incredible story, from upper-class orphan girl to Buddhist monk, reveals the struggles of early transsexuals and challenges conventional notions of what gender really means.Pagan Kennedy has published eight books. Her biography Black Livingstone was named a New York Times Notable Book. Her novel Spinsters was short-listed for the Orange Prize and was the winner of the Barnes & Noble Discover Award. She has written for the New York Times Magazine, Boston Globe Magazine, the Village Voice, Details, the Utne Reader, the Nation, and Ms. magazine. She lives in Somerville, Massachusetts.
“Oddly mesmerizing, as close to Shakespearean tragedy as you can come with the words tube pedicle and mass of cartilage in your book. It’s Romiette and Julio.”—Mary Roach, New York Times Book Review
“A wild read…an absorbing look at a century of medical breakthroughs that allow people to change noses—or genitalia—to match their identities. A–”—Entertainment Weekly “Replete with obsession, identity crises, and personal recreations…If you’re looking for intrigue, this book is fairly dripping with it.”—Washington Blade “Mesmerizing…Novelist Kennedy’s literary chops serve her well in this fascinating and heartbreaking social history and tale of two lost souls, for it is as absorbing and powerful as any fiction.”—Booklist “Part biography, part cultural history, The First Man-Made Man is a dramatic, revelatory narrative that brightly illuminates the psyche of the first female-to male.” —Chicago Sun Times“The First Man-Made Man is oddly mesmerizing, as close to Shakespearean tragedy as you can come with the words 'tube pedicle' and 'mass of cartilage' in your book. It's Romiette and Julio.” —New York Times
"Sheds welcome light on the changes in society’s attitudes and in scientific thinking about gender." —Kirkus
"An enlightening tour of how mid-century science conceptualized gender, hormones and transsexual surgery...an entertaining and informative popular history." –Publishers Weekly
"This book is pure brilliance-the research, the execution, the wonder and heartbreak.” —Natalie Goldberg, author of Writing Down the Bones and The Great Failure
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