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(More customer reviews)What I enjoyed most about Self-Made Man was Vincent's insistance on putting herself in difficult situations. Being a woman passing yourself off as a man in bowling leagues, strip clubs, in a monestary, at a male-only retreat, as a salesman, and even dating, would be nerve-wracking to say the least. Had she not taken such risks, the book would have suffered quite a bit. As it is, it ranks right up there with Black Like Me in terms of its journalistic and analytical worth.
One might argue that Vincent concentrated too much on the extremes of male behavior and not enough on the work-a-day, average joe; however, such an argument would fail to grasp her reasons for delving so far into the margins of masculinity. Vincent's insistance on putting herself at the edge of the most personal, secretive, cloistered, and sometimes seedy male environments created the conflict and drama necessary to reveal men at their finest and weakest. The reactions of the men around her to the situations they found themselves in and her own observations about both those men and herself pinpoint and amplify the attitudes of those involved, both implied and expressed, in a way that observing the hum-drum of the "regular guy" would not.
I was often struck by how well Vincent's thoughts on the subject of men mirrored my own as a man. I was gratified that she was able to cull a sense of sympathy for the plight of men in the search for their masculinity.
One thing that struck me about Self-Made Man was Vincent's insistance on creating fairly intimate relationships with the people she was writing about. Every chapter contains reflections on her guilt at deceiving those subjects she had befriended along the way as well as an urge to reveal her gender to them, which she did in nearly every instance. To me, this pattern revealed more about the author than it did about the men and women she met. I got the feeling that Vincent was "coming out" to her subjects--as though she were playing out a bit of psycho-drama lingering from her days as a closeted lesbian.
In her chapter on dating in particular, I found her rationale for coming out to the women she had been "dating" as a bit self-serving, and really made me wonder at the state of mind the author was in to slingshot a gender study exercise into a chance at seducing an unsuspecting gal or two. In a way though, I could hardly blame Vincent. She was fulfilling two deep-seeded desires in one fell swoop: the need to confess and the need to get laid. A wonderful two-for-one, don't you think? Although, this chapter started to make me wonder at Norah's motives.
Often I thought Vincent was seeking intimacy and sympathy from her subjects and often it seemed inappropriate. I got the sense of a person in great need of acceptance and likewise that she was either consciously or unconsciously creating situations in which she would require forgiveness. To be sure, I can understand Vincent's guilt at deceiving the decent and kind folks she related to as Ned, but a simple apology and explanation in an afterword of the book would likely have sufficed. Yet, Vincent gravitated toward a series of dramatic confrontations with her subjects in what seemed to me to be bouts of self-flagellation. It felt like she was doing penance superficialy for her lying, and that more deeply than that, she was doing penance for her lesbianism. Still deeper, under the heaps of guilt Vincent piled on herself, was the search for approval.
These layers of psychological need made Vincent's views fascinating, but not always believable. Her hospitalization for a nervous episode at the end of the book speaks volumes about her mental state, but it does so in a way that undercuts her rationale for being hospitalized. In fact, it was in writing about herself that Vincent showed the greatest degree of obtuseness and obfuscation. It's unfortunate and quite understandable, but ultimately diminishes her credibility.
Still, when she concentrates on masculinity and men, Vincent is incisive and thoughtful to a great degree. I found much of the book illuminating, and I think that women in particular would gain a better perspective on men through this book.
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A journalist's provocative and spellbinding account of her eighteen months spent disguised as a man Norah Vincent became an instant media sensation with the publication of Self-Made Man, her take on just how hard it is to be a man, even in a man's world. Following in the tradition of John Howard Griffin (Black Like Me), Norah spent a year and a half disguised as her male alter ego, Ned, exploring what men are like when women aren't around. As Ned, she joins a bowling team, takes a high-octane sales job, goes on dates with women (and men), visits strip clubs, and even manages to infiltrate a monastery and a men's therapy group. At once thought- provoking and pure fun to read, Self-Made Man is a sympathetic and thrilling tour de force of immersion journalism.
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