A.D.: A Memoir - Hardcover

Millett, Kate

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393035247 ISBN 13: 9780393035247

Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc, 1995

Synopsis

A profile of the author's Aunt Dorothy, who was called A. D. or Anno Domina by Millett and her two sisters, offers a dialogue between student and teacher that also reveals the gay experience in 1950s America.

About this title

From Library Journal:

Millet (The Politics of Cruelty, LJ 2/1/94) writes, "For there were two human beings that I loved and desired all my life-my own father and his sister Dorothy." Aunt Dorothy was Anna Domina, "A.D.," so named by Kate and her two sisters. Growing up in Minneapolis-St.Paul, Kate especially adored and revered this venerable, wealthy woman who taught her much of the world, culture, literature, art; she was a commanding figure who also dominated, controlled, and unrelentingly insisted on her way. She financed Kate's Oxford education based on the promise that Kate would give up her lesbian relationship. Kate did not-she and her lover were together at Oxford-and once Dorothy learned of that deception Kate was never forgiven. It is this breach that Millett writes about-page after page, with almost maniacal insistence that gets a bit repetitious but is compelling in its way-in agonizing torment. Reconciliation never occurred. Dorothy remained distant and Millett wondered in vain if there was "some way to convert her shade into a friendly spirit?" A good choice for literature collections.
Robert L. Kelly, Fort Wayne Community Schs., Ind.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Publishers Weekly:

In this candid autobiographical memoir, feminist Millett (Sexual Politics) focuses on her rich Aunt Dorothy, aesthete and society matron of St. Paul, Minnesota, whom the author idolized and betrayed. In the late 1950s, at the age of 21, Millett accepted her aunt's cash handout, which enabled her to study at Oxford?a gift that came with the stipulation that she would never again see her divorced female lover, Jaycee. Deceiving her aunt, Millett took the money and Jaycee to Oxford. There Jaycee had a clandestine affair with another woman. Aunt Dorothy?worshipfully nicknamed Anno Domina, hence the book's title?discovered Millett's deception and never forgave her. When Dorothy died years later, she bequeathed Kate just $25,000, whereas the author's sister Sally got "a fabulous sum." Writing in a free-associative style, Millett discusses the pressures to remain in the closet in the 1950s and '60s, her Irish roots and the corrosive effects of money on her divided family, as well as her artistic struggles as a writer, painter and sculptor. Her healing book is a brave exorcism of anger and self-castigation.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0393035247
• ISBN 13: 9780393035247
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 325