• For God and Country by James Yee
• Smith Magazine
• Hello to All That: A Memoir of Zoloft, War, and Peace by John Falk
• Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt
• The Tender Bar by J.R. Moehringer
• Junior by Macaulay Culkin
• The Bill from My Father by Bernard Cooper

Male Tales

All of our lives are full of stories, and, more and more, men are opening up to share these tales in the form of memoirs.

In recent years, the male memoir has become a genre explored extensively by men, both as readers and writers.

"There's no question in my mind that there's a growing interest in male memoirs at the moment," says literary agent Susan Rabiner, whose agency sold James Yee's recent memoir For God and Country and has several others awaiting publication. "The distinction between the sexes was once very role-based, but it's being broken down. Men are no longer afraid to talk about their emotions."

Memoir lovers can head to the online publication Smith Magazine, which excerpts a new memoir every month. Guess what gender the site's editors are?

"When it comes to figuring out how, or how not, to live," says the magazine's founder, Larry Smith, "memoirs are our instruction manuals."

We consulted Smith on guy memoirs. Here's a look at some of the tomes on his book shelf.

Hello to All That: A Memoir of Zoloft, War, and Peace, by John Falk.
The story of a man who tries to turn his life around by becoming a reporter in Sarajevo. "It's a funny, deep, and dark book by a depressed but genius writer," says Smith.

Angela's Ashes, by Frank McCourt.
One of the most acclaimed memoirs of the last decade. "It's amazing," says Smith. "It made me rethink my sometimes cynical views about the potentially sappy memoir format."

The Tender Bar by J.R. Moehringer.
A tale about growing up fatherless on Long Island, NY, and learning life lessons from people at bars.

Junior by Macaulay Culkin.
A fictionalized memoir by the former child star. "It's an attempt to capture his inner-weird-hipster-writerly voice," says Smith.

The Bill from My Father, by Bernard Cooper.
An elegy to the author's dad, who viewed his son as a constant disappointment because he chose not to become a lawyer. (Cooper's dad did indeed send him a bill for the expenses incurred in his childhood.)

 

Posted on April 17, 2006