Man Made: A Stupid Quest for Masculinity - Hardcover

Stein, Joel

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0446573124 ISBN 13: 9780446573122

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing, 2012

Synopsis

The smudge looked suspiciously penis- like. The doctor confirmed: "That's the baby's penis!" which caused not celebration, but panic. Joel pictured having to go camping and fix a car and use a hammer and throw a football and watch professionals throw footballs and figure out whether to be sad or happy about the results of said football throwing.

So begins his quest to confront his effete nature whether he likes it or not (he doesn't), by doing a twenty-four-hour shift with L.A. firefighters, going hunting, rebuilding a house, driving a Lamborghini, enduring three days of boot camp with the U.S. Army, day-trading with $100,000, and going into the ring with UFC Hall of Famer Randy Couture. Seeking help from a panel of experts, including his manly father-in-law, Boy Scouts, former NFL star Warren Sapp, former MLB All-Star Shawn Green, Adam Carolla, and a pit bull named Hercules, he expects to learn that masculinity is defined not by the size of his muscles, but by the size of his heart (also, technically, a muscle). This is not at all what he learns.

About this title

About the Author

Joel Stein grew up in Edison, N.J., and went to Stanford. From 1997-2017 he was a staff writer for Time magazine, writing a regular humor column and more than a dozen cover stories; he was also the back page columnist for Entertainment Weekly and the opinion section of the Los Angeles Times. He has contributed to Bloomberg Businessweek, GQ, Esquire, the New Yorker, Food & Wine, Travel + Leisure, the New York Times Book Review, Elle, and Men's Health.

Stein was a Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton and has appeared as a talking head on television shows such as Real Time with Bill Maher, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, and VH1's I Love The '80s. He's interviewed celebrities for HBO, Cinemax, and Comedy Central. In addition to writing on staff for two television shows, he created an animated show for VH1 (Hey Joel) and wrote six network pilots. His 2012 book, Man Made: A Stupid Quest For Masculinity, was a bestseller, and Fox hired him to adapt it as a film script. He has also written for the show American Princess produced by Jenji Kohan -- best known as the creator of Showtime comedy-drama series Weeds and the Netflix series Orange is the New Black.

Reviews

When 38-year-old, self-confessed unmanly man Stein finds out he and his wife are having a baby boy, he is seized by the compulsion to learn how to do all that manly stuff he’s neglected. So he spends time with some firefighters (all the while hugely intimidated by their dazzling good looks); learns to love dogs (with the help of a former Playboy playmate); gets some lessons in the fundamentals of baseball (from a two-time MLB all-star); and spends a weekend as a Boy Scout (mentored by a 13-year-old named Wiggles). The author’s wife thinks his “manquest” is a stupid idea, but for Stein, it’s a necessary attempt to confront all of the things he’s spent his life avoiding and to learn some skills that will make him a better father to his little boy. It’s a very funny book, but it’s not really a comedy; it’s more like a cockeyed autobiography, an embarrassingly honest story of one man’s last-ditch effort to Become a Man. Most readers—and their female counterparts—will relate to the book in some way. --David Pitt

Edition details

• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0446573124
• ISBN 13: 9780446573122
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 304