It’s been over a decade since I listened to the sequel to this book, Real Men Don’t Bond, as an audiobook during my hour-plus commuting days. I thought highly enough of the audiobook sequel that I went ahead and bought the original when I found it at a book fair.
As a document from 1982, it’s quite the historical document. Portions of it are amusing, and parts of it are not. Its uneven nature stems from the very, dare I say it, bloggishness? A couple longer pieces obviously appeared in magazines, but some of the shorter riffs are just lists to put something on the pages in between the covers of the book.
Masculine readers can take some chuckles from the work if they can tell themselves he means it. Sometimes, the humor does seem defensive of masculinity, but other parts of it build ridiculous straw real men for the cosmopolitan (ca. 1982) set to mock.
Fortunately, the book is short. As I said, some funny bits, but some not so funny at all. But it’s a historical document, too, a peek not only at the image but also the lens that produced it.
