The Good Men Project: Real Stories from the Front Lines of Modern Manhood.

2010-01-04
By

The Good Men Project: Real Stories from the Front Lines of Modern Manhood. Edited by James Houghton, Larry Bean and Tom Matlack. Boston: The Good Men Foundation, 2009. $14.99.  251 pp. www.goodmenproject.org

The Good Men Project, edited by a triumvirate of authors, makes a good first impression. It is an unassuming book, not wearing its heart on its sleeve, offering a slew of genuine, mostly first-person stories by men willing to reveal their blemishes as well as their gold. The range of topics and backgrounds is unusually diverse.  Many men offer serious revelations, in some cases surprising us with the courage required for them to give us their (apparently) real names in their bylines.  The essays are divided into four categories: fathers, sons, husbands, workers.

Steve Almond contributes a breathtakingly candid essay about his runaway masculinity, warts and all, concluding with a realistic redemption through his devotion to his son.  John Oliver’s magical piece portrays a white man attending a funeral in a black church several years after his daughter’s death, in an unexplained link that I found very moving.

Norm Appel bares the soul of a drug-troubled family in which one son dies and the other nearly follows suit, eventually rebuilding his life around helping drug addicts through interventions.  Stuart Horwitz plays music on the streets with his daughter and practices non-attachment.

After Rolf Gates’s sister dies, he tries to keep everything the same despite his daughter’s subsequent birth until he starts meditating and comes to own the changes in his life. Christopher Koehler shares with us his success by the skin of his teeth at fatherhood, snatching the good life from a near-suicide and his emotional neglect of his son.

Kent George relates to us a surprisingly tender story of a boy who doesn’t like to fight.  Serious dysfunction evident in family fire-building in author Keith Ackers’ childhood is transformed into more functional creating of fires as an adult with his daughter’s help.

Ricardo Federico tells us of how he received the fatherly advice for which many men ache, closing with an ethereal visions of years and generations passing before our eyes.  Editor James Houghton pens a gripping story of himself as heir to the Corning fortune, adjusting after his father’s sudden, calamitous car accident.  Houghton grows up a rich kid just wanting to be like everyone else, and finally decides to opt out of his heritage and to start a non-profit to help former and current prisoners.

Joe D’Arrigo writes a moving tale of his wife’s death from stomach cancer.  Amin Ahmad provides an all-too-rare glimpse of working class life.  Michael Kamber tells us of himself as a war photographer with truly phenomenal courage, in constant motion, at times breathtakingly irresponsible, yet a man of awesome achievement. One of the great pluses of this book is the ability of such writers to stay grounded in telling such tales, allowing us to relate to and empathize with them.

Julio Medina portrays the powerful transformation of a drug dealer after, while in prison, his niece brags to him about her drug dealer boyfriend. Subsequently, Medina enrolls in a prison seminary master’s degree program. He also takes a big risk when he picks up a stabbed man in an attempt to help him, getting blood all over himself and dangerously flying in the face of the prisoner code.  Medina has dedicated his life since then to working to stop prisoner violence.

Curtis B. provides an absorbing, detailed, fascinating tale of his work for the Peace Corps in rural Mongolia, where Genghis Khan is worshipped.  Joseph Leavens’ curiously flat final piece, ironically titled “Resolution,” in my view comes close to contradicting much of what the rest of the book stands for.

In the end, this unique book leaves a mixed impression. Its very diversity gives it a somewhat scattershot tone.  More skilled editing might have helped; having three editors could be less advantageous than having one. While Robert Pinsky, who happens to be one of my all-time favorite poets, opens and closes the book with poems he generously contributed, these particular pieces are somewhat underwhelming and fail to fully connect with the book’s themes. Stronger selections for the opening and closing essays would have also strengthened the book.

The Good Men Project collects together in one place well over thirty varied voices conveying an overall impression of optimism and the potential good men have for doing great things.  Imperfections aside, it provides a rewarding and instructive ride and is recommended.

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  • http://www.standyourground.com POIUYT

    I know exactly why the majority of do-or-say-nothing-bad-to-females from within the male genderclass are so supportive of pro-female double standard sentiments by ommission, and vehemently disagree with considering themselves as but one, amongst others of their own kind : CONCEIT !

    … It is for these same reasons of ommission to unite, why males are universally and monolithically cast and portrayed badly, as an existential evil to others in all societies.

    … It is for these same reasons of ommission to unite, that the very social contract that has served all well since antiquity between the sexes, is nowadays falsely described and treated as an evil originating with and perpetuated by males.

    … It is for these same reasons of ommission to unite, a perniciously themed and deliberately manufactured imbalance has arisen surrounding reproductive, sexual, economic and even engineered relations between males and female others.

    … It is for these same reasons of ommission to unite, tens of millions of men are coerced into blindly and obediently fighting wars for a fatherland, which has not the slightest lingering regard or respect for their person, property or progeny.

    … It is for these same reasons of ommission to unite, theives, prostitutes, harlots, illegal migrants and bastardising aliens of the appropriate gender, chasing the coveted green-card or residence permit, are considered better citizens and of a footing ten steps ahead of husbands and fathers. Even where these men are the historically indigenous subjects of the land !!!

    … It is for these same reasons of ommission to unite, why every overwhelming and negative experience of males in and out of marriage or the workplace, does not even exist, let alone come to institutional attention, as deserving of treatment or address.

    … It is for these same reasons of ommission to unite, that the very concept of a constitutional republic of equal citizens, of an equal footing in law and procedure, is falsely held aloft, to be an evil manufactured by men. That is, as a means to oppress and disadvantage women whom by gender alone, are allegedly more worthy and deserving of absolute freedom to do as they please were it not for us males.

    … It is for these very same reasons of ommission to unite, that successive and perpetual amendments to law and procedure are arbitrarily enacted on a daily basis to mens disadvantege and violation. That is to a point where it is safe now to say as far as males are concerned, there is no fixed law but merely an institutional caprice and a dynamic tyranny which changes by the moment to thwart, inhibit and usurp us.

    … It is for these same reasons of ommission to unite, we are encouraged as fools to belive that those very things that are most damaging to us, sexually, economically and socially are good things, if such nonsenses lead to a chance liasoin with societies more designated worthies. But who the goddamned hell made these chosen designates any more worthy in the first place, if not our own fellow mankind, eh?

    … It is for these same reasons of ommission to unite, we males for many future generations are set to experience the most eggregious, heartless and barbaric of personal violations and usurpations this world has ever seen. All because the most rotten of a political lie is oft repeated in high places and elswhere: That is, “that the physical, economic, social, moral, ethical and personal emancipation of females, nescesarily leads to a hell on earth for our own group that are males”. What a deep, dyed fib and a dastardly falsehood !

    … It is for these same reasons of ommission to unite, that we are bound by mutual enforcement and policing, to an excessive observance of an obsolete, outdated, outmoded and counter-productive subsevience and servility to those deemed more worthy. That is, when just about every substantive reason and material return for such conduct, has been outlawed, deemed mendacious or determined to be a sexual harrasment.

    … It is for these same reasons of ommission to unite, that Conservative, Socialist, Liberal, Religious, Libertarian, Agnostic, Aetheist, Black, White, Hispanic, Jew, upper-class, middle-class, working-class, Mangina, MRA, FRA and every other single male representative of you, I and others of mankind forming the majority, stand aloof and in mindless self-destructive conspiracy against our own selves.

    That is all by ommission to team up, to unite, to unionise the male gender !!!

    1.
    If all these fellows of our own kind stand alone, in conceit of nothing really worthy, but exceedingly pridefull and full of joy for our individuality as men, better than thou, and more self-aware of our singular personhood than those others of our kind around us …

    2.
    If all those fellows of our own kind individualistically, purposefully and deliberately omit to reccognise and work with each other on a mutual task of such proportion to ourselves for many generations, as to be insurmountable alone as individuals …

    3.
    If all fellows of our own kind go it alone, because we are men, not members of a genderclass and not on the one side, but stand in contemptuous isolation from those whom appeal to collectivism from within …

    … Then we are doomed in splendid aloofness and are justifyably so doomed in carefree isolation from each other, in a world and society where others unite against our common genderclass interests. And these enemies of men and maleness never work alone or as individuals my friend !!!

    We have no choice but to root-out from within ourselves by ourselves traitors and or personal atttitudes inimical to the collective interests of males, inorder to survive this misandrous age intact !!!






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