Men I've Never Been by Michael Sadowski
Men I've Never Been recounts Michael Sadowski's odyssey as a boy who shuns his own identity-and, ultimately, his sexual orientation-in order to become who he thinks he's supposed to be. Beginning with the memory of a four-year-old sitting in a dingy dive bar, sounding out newspaper headlines while his boasting father collects drinks from onlookers, each chapter highlights a different image of manhood that Sadowski saw at home, at school, or on television-from sports heroes, hunters, and game show hosts to his charismatic but hard-drinking father. As he learns not to talk, laugh, cry, or love, he retreats further behind a stoic mask of silence-outwardly well-functioning but emotionally isolated, sinking under the weight of the past. Through wrenching tragedy and tense, life-threatening challenges, Sadowski learns to find love, purpose, and healthy self-regard. In coming to understand his identity and his place within his family, he meditates on the power of real human connection and comes to grasp the damage of his troubled upbringing and the traumas caused by toxic masculinity. By turns comic and tragic, this nuanced memoir uncovers the false selves we create to get along in the world and the price we pay to maintain them.
A powerful, beautiful sock in the stomach of a memoirIt's filled with living, breathing, three-dimensional people, settings that are so vivid they have a cinematic quality, refrains and reprises that give the whole story a musical coherence. The ending will leave readers in a state of-I don't know what-grief? joy? wonder? hope? All of those and more. I can imagine this book changing lives."" - Domenica Ruta, author of the memoir With or Without You
""A compelling and exceedingly well-written memoir that is, at times, as heart-wrenching and hilarious as any book I've read in a very long time. Sadowski is a craftsman; there's so much earned empathy and experience in here that it's hard to overstate."" - Jared Yates Sexton, author of The Man They Wanted Me to Be
""A compelling and exceedingly well-written memoir that is, at times, as heart-wrenching and hilarious as any book I've read in a very long time. Sadowski is a craftsman; there's so much earned empathy and experience in here that it's hard to overstate."" - Jared Yates Sexton, author of The Man They Wanted Me to Be
Michael Sadowski is an Assistant Professor in the Bard College Master of Arts in Teaching Program, based in New York City and Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. He is also the editor of Adolescents at School: Perspectives on Youth, Identity, and Education. A former high school teacher, he was also an instructor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, editor of the Harvard Education Letter, and vice-chair of the Massachusetts Governor's Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780299330903 |
| ISBN 10 | 0299330907 |
| Title | Men I've Never Been |
| Author | Michael Sadowski |
| Series | Living Out: Gay And Lesbian Autobiographies |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | University of Wisconsin Press |
| Year published | 2021-04-30 |
| Number of pages | 232 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |