Man Alive: A True Story of Violence, Forgiveness and Becoming a Man by Thomas Page McBee

Man Alive: A True Story of Violence, Forgiveness and Becoming a Man Reviews

• 
  Claire

  This book is so, so good.
  
  If I had to say what it's about, I'd say that it's about childhood sexual abuse, a gunpoint mugging as an adult, and how these two experiences informed McBee's understanding of what it means to become a man. That would be a simplification, of course, but I know that sometimes when you read these reviews you want to get some idea of what the book deals with.
  
  I had lots of feelings as I read Man Alive, but the main one was awe at the author's bravery in writing about these things. So open, genuine, vulnerable, convicted.
  
  I truly couldn't put it down, which to me is probably the greatest feature of any book. I think I finished it at something like 4 am, for what that's worth. ;)
  
  Recommendation: for everyone who is interested in life and humanity. I can't say enough good things about it.
• 
  julieta

  Beautiful writing, beautiful thoughts on forgiveness, of love, change, pain memories, love.
  
• 
  Nick

  A well-written book and an easy read, but I think I was looking for more out of it. It does a good job of describing McBee's personal journey to becoming a man, and the punchline (not really a spoiler) is that you have to be your own man. But I was hoping that someone who has to make the transition to manhood as an adult and from an entirely different perspective might have some insights into what it really means to be a man in our society: what the expectations are, how we respond to them, how to be a "good" man when there are so many "bad" men, etc. He hints at all of these themes, but leaves them largely to the reader to figure out the answers. Maybe that's how it should be, and maybe there are no definitive answers, but I would have liked to hear how he answered those considerations more directly.
• 
  Sasha

  Really loved this book! I’m stuck between 4 and 5 stars, I think I just wanted it to be a little longer?? And maybe that’s just a testament to how good it is. Very evocative writing that’s almost too poetic but really just right. The super short chapters made it really readable and I’ll definitely read it again one day! I look forward to reading his other book, Amateur. Would also read a whole memoir on his relationship with Parker, I was super intrigued by it.
  
  Huge content warning for childhood sexual trauma. Really powerful and painful and heavy in that regard, but I felt ready to read it and was really affected by his journey with it.
• 
  Guillermo Jiménez

  La referencia de este autor me vino de
  Jimena Ávalos, en el podcast que lleva con el
  William Brinkman-Clark,
  Estética Unisex, lo que dijo Jimena me impulsó de inmediato a buscar algo de él, y sí, lamento aceptar que he estado recurriendo a Amazon para conseguir libros, por costo y accesibilidad, principalmente. Googlee un poco y me decidí por este. Creo que fue una excelente elección para comenzar a leer a este increíble autor.
  
  El verano pasado me propuse leer varios libros de una de mis editoriales favoritas, Anagrama, y cuando subí una foto en Instagram de mis planes de lectura para junio me di cuenta que no tenía ni una mujer, nada de diversidad en mi elección; y se prendió una señal de alerta en mí.
  
  Durante 2019 se dieron varios cambios sustanciales en mi vida, entre ellos, percatarme que mi consumo y apropiación de la cultura solo me llevaban a reforzar una visión sesgada de mi entorno: una mirada heteropatriarcal del mundo; a pesar de mis esfuerzos en expandir mis horizontes, no me había dado cuenta que mi inclinación por leer autores hombres heterosexuales seguía siendo la norma.
  
  Ese junio de 2019 me propuse cambiar de tajo eso.
  
  Así que llegar, aunque fuera meses después, al podcast de Estética Unisex fue un oasis en mi mar de confusión: por fin sentía que alguien me abría las posibilidades a entender el mundo más allá de mi eduación machista y misógina, y por ende limitada, del mundo.
  
  “What makes a man?”, pregunta Thomas Page McBee al inicio del libro, y precisamente eso he estado buscando desde el año pasado.
  
  Estas memorias de dos momentos cumbres en la vida de McBee me ayudaron a custionarme al respecto de qué me hace un hombre, de qué me convierte en heterosexual, de qué tipo de masculinidad deseo tener, de cuál creo que debe ser mi aportación a mi entorno social próximo: amigos, familia, compañeros de trabajo, conocidos.
  
  Una cosa es saberse vulnerable, aceptar o reconocer que se tiene miedo; otra muy distinta llegar a plantearse preguntas como:
  
  

  “How could I be sure there wasn’t something terrible and destroyed lurking inside of me?”

  
  
  Hace unas semanas, platicando con la Lizbeth, trataba de hacerme explicar con respecto a tratar de al menos leer más a mujeres, personas trans, tratar de acercarme o abrirme a otras realidades y experiencias de vida: “Creo que un hombre trans me puede ayudar bastante a entender qué tipo de hombre puedo ser”.
  
  También, a principios de año, conocí a Farid, un tipazo con quien tuve oportunidad de compartir algunas ideas sobre mi infancia y adolescencia y quien me planteó la idea de explorar sobre ideas de la cultura queer; y ello, al menos en idea, me dio otra perspectiva: finalmente, somos herederos de la educación de nuestros padres, y, pues, «los límites de mi lenguaje significan los límites de mi mundo» ¿no?
  
  Sin embargo, ello no significa que debamos quedarnos ahí, permanecer estáticos, no, menos cuando ya deberíamos entender que el universo y la mente se expanden, ¿por qué no nosotros?
  
  Otra cosa que se conectó con esta lectura es la propuesta de mi terapeuta, que yo más bien identifico con el psicoanálisis freudiano, y en el caso de McBee, pues termina por explorar el “pasado del lugar donde nació, visitar a la familia”, para tener un “sense of the real architecture of a person”, algo a lo que yo le he sacado la vuelta desde que lo identificara con ayuda de Paty, mi terapeuta.
  
  Creo que, a final de cuentas, mi búsqueda está en tratar de entender las historias que me cuento a mí mismo, poder identificar la ficción de la realidad, dejar los sueños para las esféras idílicas y entender que hay responsabilidades de las que me toca hacerme cargo.
  
  

  “The world is vicious and beautiful and, to some extent, unexplainable. But that doesn’t stop us from wanting a story, all the same”.

  
  
  Era finales de enero, celebraba mi cumpleaños en medio de una separación, conocí a un par de nuevas e increíbles personas, nada me preparaba para lo que vendría después: otro divorcio en medio del inicio de una pandemia mundial, una debacle emocional al mismo tiempo que iniciaba un nuevo proyecto laboral y mi terapia; rescatar y apostar por la familia y las amistades; y, al final de todo, conocer a una persona increíble que cambiaría por completo mi idea del amor, del respeto, de la admiración, que me ayudaría a redondear mi búsqueda por volverme una persona responsable de sus acciones y pensamientos.
  
  Lean, sí, pero también lean aquello que los rete, que los cuestione, que los lleve a explorar lugares ignotos.
  
  El testimonio de Thomas Page McBee es esperanzador, de un tipo de esperanza concreta, asequible, el mundo es “vicious and beautiful”: enfrentemoslo así, con el rostro en alto, los ojos bien abiertos, y los brazos listos para defendernos… o para abrazarlo en toda nuestra extensión.
• 
  Esther Espeland

  A quick, powerful, precise read! Big cw for childhood sexual abuse
• 
  Hind

  I’m rarely moved by anything, so it’s always an indication of great writing when I am. Thomas writes of his incredibly honest journey trying to to reconcile his past with who he is and who he wants to be. Not a light read by any means.
• 
  Emmkay

  A very thoughtful and beautifully written memoir. McBee writes about his transition to male, while exploring the ongoing effect on him of two big formative experiences: being molested by his father (or presumed-at-the-time father) as a child, and being mugged with his partner as an adult. These are obviously both very bad things, and both affected how he looked at himself and his gender identity. But the way he writes about them, about the people around him (and himself), and about cause and effect, is subtle and full of empathy. I can't wait to read his new memoir as well.
• 
  Robert

  I've read a number of books and stories by trans women of late and it's great to finally read something more from the trans male side of the coin (shout out to Dylan Edwards and his wonderful 2012 book of comics from Northwest Press called Transposes). McBee is a tremendously talented writer (hard to believe he's only in his early 30's) and this memoir is a haunting and moving piece of work. Highly recommended; when I finished it I was near tears.
• 
  Savannah Tracy

  I started Man Alive months ago but only read a chapter or so, then read the entire book in one sitting today. Man am I mad at myself for putting it off! This was an incredibly crafted book from start to finish and hit so many chords along the way. What a beautiful read. I would venture to say that this is better than Amateur?? The prose and structure are clearly so carefully considered but not overwrought. big CW for childhood sexual assault.
• 
  Megan

  I reread this for class (I'm teaching it alongside Kai Cheng Thom's Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars in my Trans Studies class) -- it's an intense read, addressing McBee's confrontation with his history of childhood trauma as a kind of final stage that he needed to get through before entering into masculinity and new selfhood. On second read, found some of the themes repetitive and a little too tidily resolved -- though still appreciate so much, especially the questions that are asked--about (good/bad) masculinity, what it means to pass -- not always as a man, necessarily, but as this or that kind of person.
• 
  MariNaomi

  If you've been in my vicinity for this past week or so, you've heard me go on and on about this book. Gripping, poignant, heartbreaking and so so so well-written and perfect. This guy is gonna be huge.
• 
  Rambling Reader

  Unbelievable writing. Impressive stuff. Can't wait to read more by Thomas Page McBee.
  
  
• 
  Dylan Ramsay-Keal

  Painful and poetic. It’s a must read!
• 
  ｅｌｌｉｅ

  I quite enjoyed this book, there were times where I didn’t overly like jumping from age to age in Thomas’ story but in the end it does make sense for the flow of the book. Having the more crucial chapters in the book stood out to me quite a bit while the ones that played a part were shorter, it made the reading flow nice and simple. This is one of the first autobiographies that I have ever read and I think of it as a bold choice for a first one considering the topics discussed in the novel. I appreciate Thomas for being brave and writing this novel, letting thousands upon thousands of people into this time of his life and a dark part of his past.
• 
  Bryan Cebulski

  It took me about half the book to really get into, but fantastic once I settled into the style. There's something about the approach and the language that was off-putting at first--the organizing of one's life through these specific lenses and poetic syntax--but once I accepted and embraced how this is McBee's way of processing and communicating something deeply personal and important, I was able to better appreciate the book.
  
  Man Alive is spare and powerful, sort of prose poetry memoir. Reminds me a lot of Inside/Out by Joseph Osmundson. McBee's writing at first, to me, felt like it was weaving around the issues too much at first, like it was trying to purple up the writing in order to avoid talking about what it was trying to talk about. Getting further in, however, and you realize that he's circling in on the themes (the "Violence, Forgiveness and Becoming a Man" of the subtitle), at first only lightly touching and then, finally, grabbing you with them and not letting go. Really, really good.
• 
  Moray Teale

  Thomas Page McBee’s account of his decision to move from passing to full female-to-male transition is testament to how a personal story can be told simply but with huge power and heart. It isn’t an easy story to read, I can’t imagine how it was to live, as McBee explains his childhood abuse at the hands of his father and his struggle to come to terms with the potential relationship between this abuse and the development of his gender identity. Because at the heart of this story is the question, who and what makes a man? This man, who was born female. This part of the story, though difficult, is not graphic. It is told with delicacy and remarkable restraint, McBee trusting to the reader’s empathy rather than supplying them with intense details. Alongside the chapters that deal with the events surrounding this abuse McBee tells of a mugging he later describes as “the best thing that ever happened to [him ]”. A dangerous and dramatic moment that provided a burst of clarity and perspective about his future and his identity.
  
  Not only is his story one that needs telling he can also really and truly write. The interweaving of the threads of his narrative cleverly expresses how these events in his life created, and allowed him to create and discover, the man he is. His intimate, honest style has a clarity of voice and vision that packs an enormous amount of power into a few pages. There’s real poetry in his his ability to capture moments of transcendence and insight in a few powerfully and perfectly chosen words (“the warble between the shape in my mind and the one in the mirror,”) and this is only highlighted by the complete absence of sentimentality or sensationalism. It’s a tender, poignant and powerful story about being the best you and defining yourself in the face of all the people and events that might attempt to do it for you.
  
  Some have suggested that the lack of a wider transgender context, the struggle for transgender rights, the place and theory of masculinity is a failing of Man Alive but I’m not convinced that this criticism is entirely fair. While the context is always valuable and they’re is a significant need for complex theoretical and political works on gender it is also vital just to recognise transgender life and experience. McBee has dealt with these wider issues elsewhere in his columns and perhaps will tackle them further in the future but this is not what Man Alive is about. It seems to me that he has achieved precisely what he meant to do, which was to tell his own story of self-discovery and finding his place within his own skin. It is valuable enough on its own without demanding more.It was a privilege to read about his discovery of a truer self.
  
  I received a free advance copy of this book in return for an honest, unbiased review.
• 
  Michelle

  "Man Alive: A True Story of Violence" author/columnist Thomas McBee, recalled his life from childhood on, revealing his impassioned story in short chapters from past to present. He discussed how child abuse, parental betrayal, a violent street mugging impacted his life, and importantly how he chose not to be defined by trauma. McBee wrote with tremendous integrity and compassion of his views on modern masculinity, his relationships with family members, others, also his partner, Parker.
  
  To come to terms with his family history, McBee was challenged to get the information he needed from his educated professional mother, who raised him, lived across the country, and seemed somewhat disengaged from the dysfunction, her many poor choices in men, and how her decisions affected her family. It seemed easier to leave past unpleasant truths unspoken. McBee made the trip to S.C. to visit his uncles family- and Roy, the father who abused him. The only caring advice he had ever received from Roy was to put premium gas in his car on occasion, yet McBee forgave him.
  Unlike so many memoirs with similar topics, there was no self pity, anger, focus on hurt/pain, or need for revenge. The journey was more about learning, reflection, and further healing; which was connected in part, to his mugging in Oakland. The mugger, George Higgins, was later charged in another crime leading to murder in 2010.
  
  With insight, self-awareness, and resolve McBee began his female to male transition, with the loving support of Parker. They both missed their relationship as it was, or used to be, knowing life held no guarantees for happiness.
  Thomas Page McBee has written many columns, articles, and essays featuring gender and men's studies, his work has appeared in many notable publications including the N.Y. Times. This is his first book, he lives in NYC.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• 
  Michael

  Outstanding work. I'm not much of a writer so I have decided to make my Goodreads review up of quotations on the book.
  
  "It's a confession, it's a poem, it's a time warp, it's a brilliant work of art."
  
  "McBee takes us in his capable hands and shows us what it takes to become a man who is gloriously, gloriously alive."
  
  "To read it is to witness the birth of a fuller, truer self."
  
  "A real achievement of form and narrative."
  
  "It's a story about patience, forgiveness, kindness and bravery."
  
  Anyway, read the dang book! I did! And I'm not even that good of a reader to be honest!
  I think what I liked most was the ability of the book to show that within three pages a world can be contained. That's hard to do!
  
  As someone born in Ohio, I related to the midwestern aspect of it. Feeling the need to escape/embrace.
  
  The queer aesthetics of McBee's writing shouldn't be underplayed--much like Chee or Greenwell he excels within his stylish prose akin to godparents like Baldwin or Als or Lorde.
  
  (Just speaking out of my ass now--I'm not sure what the above sentence means other than showcasing my own queerness within sentence construction.)
  
  I think a book like this should be read mostly because we have erased trans narratives from the canon and we need to start building one. I certainly didn't grow up with any trans people in my life. I think one of the sickest aspects of this here United States of America is the treatment of trans individuals. It's the same goddamn thing conservatives did to gay marriage in 2004!
  
  This is turning into a Facebook comment. Alas, I write this as the white boys singing "Jumping Jack Flash" and I'm recalling Hunter S. Thompson and all his foolish prose.
  
  Masculinity becomes both a performance and an identity to become intimate with, to find the soul within. My own goddamn self has had a self-loathing posture since Fight Club came out but I'm starting to understand the eccentricity of masculinity and not somehow denying the queerness of masculinity.
  
  The construct of WhiteBead Patriarch Masculinity is a construct for the pigs of the Republican Party to absorb.
  
  Look what they did to Katie Hill!
  
  (I'm becoming a parody at this point but you'll forgive me under the circumstances, correct? C'mon.)
  
  It's reclaiming of masculinity from rape culture.
  
  In some ways, I read it as a road novel. There's a lot of travel.
  
  Stranger on a journey of the self, etc.
  
  Not to be so flip about it. The prose is gripping. What the author went through as a child was awful.
  
  Forgiveness and abuse--that's a hard conversation for me. Baptized Catholic I am!
  
  Sometimes it always comes back to the prose for me and McBee has some of the best around. Reminded me of Maggie Nelson or Eula Biss. Minimal but never straining or some Hemingway trick. Pockets and bursts of narrative with insight from the soul.
  
  Mostly I like the structure of the book. It's hard to make short chapters work in a narrative. Without them seeming cheap. Or perhaps I'm just used to Big Giant Hunks of fiction in a kind of Phallic Daddy Worship. I don't know.
  
  Don't blame me--blame those postmodernists! I still might listen to Gravy's Rainbow's audiobook! Hell, they mention it in Knives Out!
  
  (Not the audiobook. Gravity's Rainbow.)
  
  I'm sputtering and my engine is running low so I think I'll wrap it up for now.
  
  Page 96,
  
  "It was only at odd moments that I'd pass a mirror and see shapes that shouldn't be there, a stranger who looked like me but wasn't me at all, a stranger like a kick in the chest."
  
  
• 
  Julian

  this is really beautifully written and poignant. mcbee's prose is very minimal yet very powerful, and i was totally absorbed in his musings on his family and himself through the structure of the chapters. i guess i wanted more of it. this is a really short read and i feel like i wanted mcbee to dive a little deeper into some of the themes, but i also do like how restrained it is in divulging information (letting the reader make connections on their own). overall a really solid and moving read.
• 
  Violeta

  Beautifully written and incredibly moving in its self-awareness. McBee is such a talented writer and while I expected nothing less from him - having read his other book months ago - this book still managed to surprise me in its brilliance. McBee is that kind of author whose books make you wish he was your friend. More please!
• 
  Will McGrath

  Absolutely one of the best books I've read this year - the memoir of a trans man coming to terms with violence and identity. Novelistic in its layered themes, with the pacing of a thriller. A work of radical empathy.
  
  I feel lucky to have read this book.
• 
  Eli Cory

  So unique and so tender, a real deep dive into the author's journey, one very different from mine. Sometimes the writing got a bit too 'I did this, I did that, I realised this' for me, but lots of observations made me feel things which is all I can ask.
  
  Also SIXTY BOOKS GOAL REACHED LETS GOOOOO
• 
  George

  3.5*.
• 
  Kristin Boldon

  A great memoir that deals delicately with heavy subjects like abuse, violence, sex change, and DNA surprises. Beautiful prose, and so much insight and compassion.
• 
  Mel King

  An absolute stunner of a book and an instant favorite.
• 
  Mees

  Breathtakingly beautiful.
• 
  Erin

  Beautifully, poetically, simply written. One of my top reads of the year. Centers on pathways and connectedness of trauma; gender identity; forgiveness; relationship dynamism.
• 
  Janna

  read for my transgender law & politics class