A. D., A MEMOIR

New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1995. First Edition, First Printing. . Hardcover. Fine/Near Fine. This memoir of artist-writer Millett's youth is a story of growing up gay in the 1950s and '60s in America's Midwest but it is also a tribute to "A.D.", Millett's Aunt Dorothy. A.D., Millett's father's sister, was wealthy, sophisticated, a leading socialite in St. Paul, Minnesota, an adored godmother bestowing gifts and attention to Kate and her sisters. She provided Kate with the money she needed to study at Oxford on the condition Kate leave her female lover behind. Kate accepted the money and took her lover with her anyway. Her aunt never forgave her. Discussing the virtual impossibility of growing up gay in a prominent Irish family in the 1950s and her later struggles as a writer and artist, the author of "Sexual Politics" and "The Politics of Cruelty," Millett to some extent lays to rest a tremendous personal conflict while tracing the quiet corrosive power of money and the meaning of home and love in her family. An Advance Review copy, with publisher's news release laid in. Boards and text are clean and unmarked, tight and square; the dustjacket shows only very minimal surface and edgewear, no tears or creases, no chipping, not price-clipped. Collectable.