Self-Made Man: Summary and book reviews of Self-Made Man by Norah Vincent, plus links to an excerpt from Self-Made Man and a biography of Norah Vincent.

A journalist's provocative, spellbinding account of her eighteen months spent undercover will transform the way we think about what it means to be a man Following in the tradition of John Howard Griffin (Black Like Me) and Barbara Ehrenreich (Nickel and Dimed), Norah Vincent absorbed a cultural experience and reported back on what she observed incognito. For more than a year and a half she ventured into the world as Ned, with an ever-present five o'clock shadow, a crew cut, wire-rim glasses, and her own size 11 1/2 shoes—a perfect disguise that enabled her to observe the world of men as an insider. The result is a sympathetic, shrewd, and thrilling tour de force of immersion journalism that's destined to challenge preconceptions and attract enormous attention. With her buddies on the bowling league she enjoyed the rough and rewarding embrace of male camaraderie undetectable to an outsider. A stint in a high-octane sales job taught her the gut-wrenching pressures endured by men who would do anything to succeed. She frequented sex clubs, dated women hungry for love but bitter about men, and infiltrated all-male communities as hermetically sealed as a men's therapy group, and even a monastery. Narrated in her utterly captivating prose style and with exquisite insight, humor, empathy, nuance, and at great personal cost, Norah uses her intimate firsthand experience to explore the many remarkable mysteries of gender identity as well as who men are apart from and in relation to women. Far from becoming bitter or outraged, Vincent ended her journey astounded—and exhausted—by the rigid codes and rituals of masculinity. Having gone where no woman (who wasn't an aspiring or actual transsexual) has gone for any significant length of time, let alone eighteen months, Norah Vincent's surprising account is an enthralling reading experience and a revelatory piece of anecdotally based gender analysis that is sure to spark fierce and fascinating conversation.

BookBrowse

The story drags a little at times, but despite this most women and many men will find Self-Made Man a fascinating read.  (Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).

Full Review (626 words).

Media Reviews

The Washington Post - Lily Burana Eye-opening . . . Self-Made Man will make many women think twice about coveting male ‘privilege’ and make any man feel grateful that his gender is better understood.   The New York Times Book Review ...[A] thoughtful, diligent, entertaining piece of first-person journalism.... [I]n its best moments, Self-Made Man transcends its premise altogether, offering not an undercover woman's take on male experience, but simply a fly-on-the-wall look at various unglamorous male milieus that are well off the radar screen of most journalists and book authors. Rich and audacious.   Library Journal - Jack Forman An often humorous, incisive, and fascinating account that validates the conclusions of Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus.   Publishers Weekly .... the most fascinating part of the story lies within Vincent herself-and the way that censoring her emotions to pass as a man provoked a psychological breakdown. For fans of Nickel and Dimed-style immersion reporting, this book is a sure bet.   Booklist - Vanessa Bush Starred Review. Writing from the perspective of a gay woman who had a view of the male world that women don't get to see, Vincent finds unexpected complexities in the men she meets and in herself as well.   The Times (London) [Vincent] can be as perspicuous and exact as Joan Didion or Gloria Steinem at nailing a hitherto disregarded truth about the sexes in a single elegant and witty phrase. . . . This is a brave and often fascinating book, with Vincent . . . offering us perspectives that are entirely fresh and new. Nuala O'Faolain, author of Are You Somebody? This gripping book got me through a delayed transatlantic flight beside a shrieking baby. Could I say more? It was high-risk stuff, Norah Vincent's undercover research into what men are like when they're in the places where men are men. The reader's heart beats fast at the chances she took. In adventure writing like this it is the quality of the adventurer that matters. Norah Vincent's perceptiveness, and above all her large sympathies, make her the perfect guide. Bruce Bawer, author of A Place At the Table An extraordinary human document, rich in empathy and insight. Readers expecting a light read about a diverting stunt will find themselves taking a riveting and richly illuminating journey into some of their own deepest truths. You start out peeping into a window and end up staring into a mirror. Christina Hoff Sommers A fascinating, original and often hilarious long day's journey into the world of men. Posing as a man and infiltrating the female-free places males congregate, Norah Vincent finds the male precincts to be a lot better--and a lot worse--than most women ever imagine.

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