After Egypt

by Millicent Dillon

A dual biography explores the contrasting lives and personalities of two American expatriates who lived and worked in Europe and achieved international fame in their respective arts

Genres: Nonfiction, History

403 pages, Hardcover

First published May 28, 1990

About the author

Millicent Dillon was an American writer. She was born in New York City and studied physics at Hunter College. She also worked variously at Princeton University, Standard Oil Company, Nuclear Energy for the Propulsion of Aircraft, and Northrop Aircraft. In 1965, at the age of 40, Dillon enrolled in the creative writing program at San Francisco State University. Subsequently, she taught at Foothill College in Los Altos, California. She also worked at Stanford University for nearly a decade.
Millicent became a full-time writer in 1983. She is best known for her scholarly works on the American writers Jane Bowles and Paul Bowles. These include a couple of biographies and a collection of letters, as well as The Viking Portable Paul and Jane Bowles (1994) which Dillon edited. Besides these, she also wrote short stories, novels, and plays. Her novel Harry Gold (2000) was nominated for the PEN Faulkner Award. She won five O. Henry awards and also received a Guggenheim Fellowship.
Dillon is the mother of the author Wendy Lesser.

Reviews

[Jules · Rating 3 out of 5]

The premise was a little tenuous (connecting Egypt, Isadora Duncan and Mary Cassatt) but overall a well written biography.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

The concept of this book - a dual biography of Mary Cassat and Isadora Duncan, two women who never met - is one that could have failed terribly, but the unique perspective on biography offerred by Millicent Dillon ended up working wonderfully, creating a dreamlike universe through which anecdotes from the two women's lives showed through, murky, indistinct and fascinating. Brillantly drawn together, the fault of this book lay in the occasional lack of actual biographical detail, less of a fault to me, as someone who knows the facts of Isadora Duncan's life very well, but potentially more problematic for someone reading this book without prior knowledge.

[Trent · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the expert hands of Millicent Dillon, biography becomes an art-form. Those expecting the chronological patterns of most biography, with the usual notes sounded when the subject is an artist--and the whole other set of familiar notes when the subject is a woman--may at first by confused by the risks Dillon takes with the genre. Ultimately, however, I hope that they will be as transfixed and enchanted by this dual portrait as I was.

[Kimberly McLees · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't even finish reading this one. It was boring. The author spent too much time on what other writers have said about Isadora and Mary. Isadora's life is certainly fascinating--I had no idea of the level of tragedy she endured.

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ultimately disappointing, though not uninteresting. I found Dillon's analysis of Cassatt's paintings very weak and that dampened my enthusiasm somewhat.