Publicity Plans:
Jared Yates Sexton is the author of The People Are Going to Rise Like the Waters Upon Your Shore. He is a contributing political writer at Salon, and his writing has appeared in The New York Times, The New Republic, and elsewhere. He is an associate professor of creative writing at Georgia Southern University. You can follow him at @JYSexton.
Praise for The Man They Wanted Me to Be
Finalist for the Georgia Writers Association Author of the Year
“Sexton draws on his own boyhood in rural Indiana to challenge
social perceptions of masculinity, arguing that narrowly defined
gender roles hurt men and women alike.”
—The New York Times Book Review, New & Noteworthy
“This book is critically important to our historical moment. It's
also really good—and Sexton's voice is unrelentingly present in it.
It crackles with intensity and absolutely refuses to allow the
reader to look away for even a moment from the blight that toxic
masculinity in America has wrought . . . What also makes The Man
They Wanted Me to Be work so well is that it's largely a personal
story . . . How do we as a culture get past toxic masculinity when,
as Sexton suggests, its paragon occupies the Oval Office and its
pathology is empowered? Sexton's great book points the way.”
—Nicholas Cannariato, NPR
“It is ultimately his confrontation of the forces that raised
him—and the traps he willingly entered into—which give his
reporting a narrative pulse and humanity that the field data only
hint at . . . By carefully and soberly examining his own story,
Sexton deconstructs American life and gives many examples of how
pervasive toxic masculinity is in our culture, like an aerosol
spray so micro–particulate, it escapes detection and the mention of
it is easily argued away as 'political correctness' or being
'soft.'”
—Henry Rollins, Los Angeles Times
“A real page–turner . . . His lens ranges from micro to macro to
capture American progressivism in action, the global labor shift
from traditional manufacturing, and roles prescribed to men since
the Industrial Revolution that are becoming obsolete. It examines
how we teach boys what’s expected of men in America, and the
long–term effects of this socialization.”
—Jerry Davich, Chicago Tribune
“[Sexton's] honest and heartbreaking account of never quite being
able to shed the damaging gender demands he was raised with, along
with the cultural and historical context that he provides, provides
a blueprint for how men can confront the harm that toxic
masculinity has brought them. I don't consider it critical
hyperbole to say that a book like this can save lives.”
—Erin Keane, Salon
"Part memoir and part cultural critique, in this book Sexton
examines his working-class background, the socio-historical sources
that result in the formation of toxic masculinity, and the
implications of male chauvinism on society."
—Dee Das, BookRiot
“In this moving memoir of growing up steeped in the toxic
masculinity of 1980s working–class rural Indiana, Sexton (The
People Are Going to Rise Like the Waters Upon Your Shore) gives an
emotionally intimate demonstration of the thesis that 'men have
actively overcompensated for their insecurities, so much so that
they have endangered themselves, the people they love, and their
society as a whole' . . . This thoughtful and powerful
consideration of the damage done by traditional masculinity to its
ostensible beneficiaries will reward readers’ attention.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“This book exposes the true cost of toxic masculinity—depression,
suicide, misogyny, and a shorter lifespan for men—and takes aim at
the patriarchal structures in American society that continue to
uphold an outdated ideal of manhood.”
—Kate Scott, Book Riot
“The Man They Wanted Me to Be is the kind of book all parents
should read. One also hopes it finds its way into the hands of men
whose anger masks so poorly how lost they are. The tone of Sexton’s
writing could not be more reasonable or empathetic.”
—James Tate Hill, Literary Hub
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