Self-Made Man
Page 29
A lot of men are in pain. That’s evident. Too many of them are living emotionally without fathers or subsisting in dire conflict with the fathers they have, and this has injured and even crippled both parties far more than most of them are able to say, which is why so many of us don’t know the half of it.
Boys have the sensitivity routinely mocked and shamed and beaten out of them, and the treatment leaves scars for life. Yet we women wonder why, as men, they do not respond to us with more feeling. Actually, we do more than that. We blame and disdain them for their heartlessness. And we aren’t the only ones. Men are at the center of their own conflict. They as much as anyone toughen each other in turn and often find no fault in it, since to do so would be to display an emotional facility that most were long ago denied or forbidden to express.
Healing is a vacant word in this context, limp, mealymouthed and reeking of self-pity. It inspires contempt, or it will in the men who need it most. Yet healing is what is called for, especially among men, where it will be hardest to inspire. Men have their shared experience going for them, their brotherhood, the presumption of goodwill that Ned felt in strange men’s handshakes. And that’s a start. But overcoming all the rest of it, the territorial reflex, the blocked emotional responses and the all-consuming rage, this will take more trusting vulnerability than most men grant to anyone. It will be like bulldozers learning the ballet.
Maybe it will happen. Slowly, fitfully, tentatively. I hope it does. Men haven’t had their movement yet. Not really. Not intimately. And they’re due for it, as are the women who live with, fight with, take care of and love them.
I, meanwhile, am staying right where I am: fortunate, proud, free and glad in every way to be a woman.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank my agent, Eric Simonoff, who became a big shot when I wasn’t looking, yet still deigned to represent me thereafter. Your patience, counseling and hard work were indispensable. I would also like to thank Viking’s publisher, Clare Ferraro, for her vision, generosity and stewardship. I offer a million thanks to my editor, Molly Stern, both for seeing and realizing this book’s potential. I offer a million more to my publicist extraordinaire, Carolyn Coleburn, for bucking me up under the weight of Eeyore and all else negative and morose in the media. I am indebted also to Viking Assistant Editor Alessandra Lusardi, whose tireless and mostly thankless hard work behind the scenes has made everything go smoothly. Special thanks are also due Viking’s sales and marketing departments for their encouragement, skill and contagious enthusiasm. I bow forever before the brilliant Bruce Nichols for his editorial help and sensitive encouragement in the midst of my worst despair and self-loathing. I send love and gratitude to my dear, dear friend Claire Berlinski for reading everything first and then again and again, being honest, unfailingly supportive and always insightful. I am indebted to Ryan McWilliams for teaching me how to make and maintain a beard. Without you, Ryan, this book truly could not have been written. Thank you Kate Wilson for your expertise and coaching. I am grateful to Gary Mailman for his wise counsel, John Gallagher for his helpful and gracious first reading of the manuscript, to Scott Steimle for his humor, tolerance and friendship, to Donald Moss for helping to slay the demons, to Chris Parks, Laurie Sales and Kurt Uy for being my intrepid partners in crime, to the monks for their hospitality, wisdom and grace, and finally to everyone else who participated in this project unwittingly and shared their reactions, insights and forgiveness so willingly. Finally—though “thanks” doesn’t even begin to cover it—I would nonetheless like to thank my parents and my brothers for their love, support, tireless understanding and life-giving belief in who I am. I owe you everything.