From the author of The Wake of Forgiveness ten remarkable stories that tackle what it means to be a man. Whether they find themselves walking the fertile farmland of south Texas, steering trucks through the suffocating sprawl of Houston, or turning logs into loose leaf in the mills just west of the Sabine River, the men of these stories find themselves beset by the insufficiencies of their own ingrained ideas of manhood. Like Richard Russo, Bruce...

"Men are not the enemy, and masculinity, contrary to what much of popular culture would have you believe, is the solution to what plagues individuals, families, and society as a whole. MEN, YOU ARE NOT TOXIC. You are hardwired to be masculine and you should not be ashamed of it. Society needs you to be the best version of your masculine self you can be. Unfortunately, our culture no longer honors masculinity, and for the past several decades the government,...

"Even at twelve years old, Chris Lemig knows he's gay. He just doesn't want to believe it. Spurred on by intolerance, ignorance and fear, he takes his first steps into the closet and so begin twenty-three years of drinking, drugs and attempted suicides. It's only after he wakes up one morning, beaten and still bleeding from a hate crime, that he finally finds the courage to come out and make a change. Renewed and refreshed, he finds sanity and healing...

Wyatt, who imagines himself a cowboy named Wildroot, deals with the emotional problems in his life by writing in a diary

"From an award-winning writer whose work bristles with "hard-won strength, insight, agility, and love" (Maggie Nelson), an exquisite and troubling narrative of masculinity, violence, and society. In this groundbreaking new book, the author, a trans man, trains to fight in a charity match at Madison Square Garden while struggling to untangle the vexed relationship between masculinity and violence. Through his experience boxing--learning to get hit,...

"In the wake of emancipation, black men in northern urban centers like New York faced economic isolation, marginalization, and racial violence. In response, some of those men opted to participate in underground economies, to protect themselves when law enforcement failed to do so, and to exert control over public space through force. Douglas J. Flowe traces how public racial violence, segregation in housing and leisure, and criminal stigmatization...

Looks systematically at the relationship between the images of popular culture and the social construction of masculine identities in the U.S. at the end of the 20th century. Jackson Katz argues that there is a crisis in masculinity and that some of the guises offered to men as a solution (e.g., rugged individualism, violence) come loaded with attendant dangers to women, as well as other men.

"Miguel Hernández is a teacher who has left Mexico City to complete a one year student internship in the rural hills of Puebla. He came to the school intending to focus on his teaching and his students but quickly learns that it is impossible to keep his private and professional lives separate-particularly as his experience turns into a voyage of self-discovery. His students, the Directora of the school, the baker, and other people from the town...

In Journeys & Arrivals prize-winning author Lev Raphael explores for the first time in non-fiction the gay and Jewish identities that have dominated his highly acclaimed fiction for many years. Journeys & Arrivals reveals in a collection of autobiographical and critical essays the influence these often conflicting identities of being gay and Jewish have had in his life and his writing. The child of Holocaust survivors, Raphael came to his positive...

"R. Eric Thomas didn't know he was different until the world told him so. Everywhere he went--whether it was his rich, mostly white, suburban high school, his conservative black church, or his Ivy League college in a big city--he found himself on the outside looking in. In essays by turns hysterical and heartfelt, Eric redefines what it means to be an "other" through the lens of his own life experience. He explores the two worlds of his childhood:...