In 1950, Michael Dillon guarded an astonishing secret about himself. Born Laura Dillon, he had endured the world's first female-to-male sex change. Now bearded and broad-shouldered, he could saunter into any gentleman's club without drawing a second glance. But Dillon lived in terror of discovery - if word got out, his story would be trumpeted by tabloid newspapers all over the world.
The New York Times Book Review calls this biography by Pagan Kennedy "mesmerizing. As close to Shakespearean tragedy as you can come." The book follows Michael Dillon's through his groundbreaking medical transformation and then to India, where he became one of the first Westerners ever to take vows as a Tibetan Buddhist.
" Devastatingly good. ... Novelist Kennedy’s literary chops serve her well in this fascinating and heartbreaking social history."
- Booklist
" Succeeds grandly. Kennedy does a remarkable job of conveying Dillon's youthful inner turmoil... The First Man Made Man is a dramatic, revelatory narrative that brightly illuminates the psyche of the first female-to-male."
--Chicago Sun-Times
"Dillon's tale makes for a wild read. Absorbing. "
-Entertainment Weekly
Pagan Kennedy is the author of eight previous books, and winner of numerous literary prizes. She has been a contributor to The New York Times Magazine, The Boston Globe Magazine and more than a dozen other publications.
Many years ago, she published a "secretly famous" zine called Pagan's Head; as a result, Wired magazine dubbed her "Queen of the Zines" (though Pagan still maintains that she was far from the biggest and brashest queen in the publishing underground). If you look up "zine" in the dictionary you'll find Pagan.
She's still confused about her gender.
