Thomas Page McBee was the ‘masculinity expert’ for VICE and has written the columns ‘Self-Made Man’ for the Rumpus and ‘The American Man’ for Pacific Standard. His essays and reportage have appeared in the New York Times, Playboy, The Atlantic, Glamour, Salon, and BuzzFeed, where he was a regular contributor on gender issues. Man Alive won the Lambda Literary Award and was named a Book of the Year by Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, NPR Books, and BuzzFeed. He lives in New York City, where he works as the editor of special projects at Quartz.
www.thomaspagemcbee.com @thomaspagemcbee
‘McBee’s beautifully written story is engrossing
and brave, and rings with triumph’
BuzzFeed
‘A brilliant work of art. I bow down to McBee – his
humility, his sense of humour, his insightfulness,
his structural deftness, his ability to put into
words what is often said but rarely, with such
visceral clarity and beauty, communicated’
Heidi Julavits
author of The Vanishers
‘A story about patience, forgiveness, kindness
and bravery . . . With this book, Thomas Page
McBee has done exactly what we should all
strive for: to tell our stories in ways that
humanise rather than sensationalise’
Lauren Morelli
writer, Orange Is the New Black
‘Well aware that memory and identity rarely
follow a linear path, Thomas Page McBee
attempts to answer the question,
“What does it really mean to be a man?”
Weaving past and present to do so, the book’s
journey connects violence, masculinity and
forgiveness. McBee has an intelligent heart, and it
beats in every sentence of this gorgeous book’
Saeed Jones
author of Prelude to Bruise
‘Exquisitely written and bristling with emotion,
this important book reminds us of how much
vulnerability and violence inheres to any identity.
A real achievement of form and narrative’
Jack Halberstam
author of The Queer Art of Failure
A True Story of Violence, Forgiveness and Becoming a Man
THOMAS PAGE McBEE
First published in Great Britain in 2017 by Canongate Books Ltd,
14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE
This digital edition first published in 2017 by Canongate Books
Copyright © 2014 by Thomas Page McBee
The moral right of the author has been asserted
First published in the United States by City Lights Books,
City Lights Bookstore, 261 Columbus Avenue,
San Francisco, CA 94133
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 78689 088 7
eISBN 978 1 78689 089 4
This is a work of non-fiction, but it relies on memory and, as such, its attendant illusions, spectres and plays of light. It is the truth as I’ve lived it. Many names have been changed.
For you, whoever you are.
Contents