The Trouble with Men

<div>David Shields's <i>The Trouble with Men: Reflections on Sex Love Marriage Porn and Power</i> is an immersion into the perils limits and possibilities of human intimacy. All at once a love letter to his wife a nervy reckoning with his own fallibility a meditation on the impact of porn on American culture and an attempt to understand marriage (one marriage the idea of marriage all marriages) <i>The Trouble with Men</i> is exquisitely balanced between the personal and the anthropological nakedness and restraint. While unashamedly intellectual it's also irresistibly readable and extremely moving. Over five increasingly intimate chapters Shields probes the contours of his own psyche and marriage marshalling a chorus of other voices that leaven deepen and universalize his experience; his goal is nothing less than a deconstruction of <i>eros</i> and conventional masculinity. Masterfully woven throughout is an unmistakable and surprisingly tender <i>cri de coeur</i> to his wife. The risk and vulnerability on display are in the service of radical candor acerbic wit real emotion and profound insight-exactly what we've come to expect from Shields who in an open invitation to the reader leaves everything on the page.</div>