Customer Reviews

The Bastard on the Couch: 27 Men Try Really Hard to Explain Their Feelings About Love, Loss, Fatherhood, and Freedom

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I'm sorry for the woman below who prefers cats (I wasn't even going to write a review until I read that!)...I'll take these guys any day! They're funny, sad, infuriating, evasive, charming, smart, smart, smart, and honest--they're even honest about being dishonest!!

This book is like a primer for life with men--although not polite goody two shoes men, and who wants them anyway. These are a range of men in all their glory and warts. I read the bitch in the house, which, by the way, infuriated people all over the planet. And this is a rocking sequel...just what I was hoping for, and just as in your face. The main thing is, you can't really put it down. Some of the stories are better than others, but they're all compelling. Love these guys or hate them...they've got stories to tell, and they tell them incredibly well.

This isn't my usual type of book but when I read the blurb on the back cover about why men lie and aways will, I just had to sit down and read it. The facts are familiar so I won't review how this collection came into being. I will say that the authors are uniformly excellent writers, each with a distinctive voice that makes reading these bland, exciting, informative, funny, pitiful, infuriating essays worth my time. Vince Passaro, author of the essay which hooked me, sounds just like what he is, a writer for Esquire and GQ. HIs essay, as well as those by Hank Pine [My Marriage, My Affairs - His Story], Trey Ellis [Father of the Year], Robert Skates [The Hole in the Window: A View of Divorce], and Toure [An Invitation to Carnal Russian Roulette] all kept me turning pages until I had consumed the entire volume. And consume it I did, in one sitting, with a tall cold glass of something brown and sparkling, and no shoes anywhere nearby.
What didn't I like? Well, the writers are all clearly educated, from a certain mental socio-economic class which does slant these essays in a particular direction. The writing is so glittering, a kind of polish that even editing can't provide to the struggling writer. So the perspectives are tinged with wealth, education, culture, exposure, ability - money. Which is fine, but it leaves out the other male perspectives, like guys who ae as poor as hell. Although Toure describes himself as poor in his essay, he is only poor financially. I would have enjoyed reading essays by some different kinds of men. Or perhaps that is the lesson of this book, that men are men with the same issues regardless of income or social class. Cow patties!
Not bad, and certainly light enough reading for a summer afternoon.

(...)It's fascinating to see the combination of love, guilt, revenge fantasies, naked honesty, moral relativism and depth of feeling that these men have to share with the reader--some of which they occasionally admit to having avoided sharing with their wives or partners.

Some of the essays are terrific. Then there are those that are eye-rollingly just, well, too much. Toure's "An Invitation to Carnal Russian Roulette" reads like something a fourteen-year old boy would write about what he figures it's like to have relations with several different women. It may be truthful--I have no reason to doubt that it is--but the prose is awfully purple.

But back to the terrific pieces. Steve Friedman writes touchingly and with a little bit of wonder at the fact that he's 47 years old, heterosexual and unmarried. He's willing to probe all the probable causes, even at the risk of being uncomfortably honest about himself. Fred Leebron's "I am Man, Hear Me Bleat" is hilarious, but not without an underlying resentment--which makes it all the more hilarious. Daniel Jones' own "Chivalry on Ice" addresses the fact of his wife's incredible strength and independence and her simultaneous inability to deal with bugs. Rob Jackson's "My Life as a Housewife" addresses the fascinating topic of the househusband, and may be the most skillful piece in terms of combining the modern man's wish to be, well, modern--with all the helpfulness and honesty and rejection of sexist role models that implies--with his feeling that maybe, just maybe, he is missing out on the standard male experience.

It's a great read, and a wide-ranging scope of topics. I look forward to Jones and Hanauer doing some kind of dual follow-up with actual couples--married or not, heterosexual or not--addressing a new range of issues in some future volume.

Was given this book by 'the woman in my life,' who'd already read it the second it came out (I had to hear her commentary every night as she read it in bed) and thought I'd read an essay or two, but then I found I plowed through the whole thing in a few days. And I admit I enjoyed it, but the funny thing is how much I've thought about it afterward. Some essays, like the one "Why Men Lie (and always will)" and "My Problem with her Anger" I think of EVERY DAY! And also, sorry dear, "The Lock Box," about the hubby who never gets much because his wife is always either at work or, when at home and actually in bed, chooses reading above all else (sound familiar, anyone?).

So now that my wife has won me over with this one, she's going to try to get me to read her dog-eared, bedside copy of The Bitch in the House. We'll see. I just might!

This book is a collection of 27 essays written by men on the topics of love, honesty, lying, desires, family, and needs. Most of the essays provide a fascinating read, some more riveting than others. Only a couple are tedious.

The essays evoke many emotions with the funny, heartwarming, sad, curious, and intriguing tales. Human nature comes through as these pages pour out the men's thoughts, the kind few human beings would share with their loved ones and friends.

Topics cover the woman making more money than the man, the stay-at-home Dad, a marriage of equals, an almost 50-year-old man who remains a bachelor, a man who prefers older women, an open marriage, affairs, and less "Mood for Love" in a marriage.

It's easy to dislike some of the men while respecting others, but their prose and candor provide impressive insight into otherwise ordinary situations in their lives. Hearing a story about a man who after 17 years of marriage and two kids isn't as chivalrous as he was when he first met and married his wife doesn't sound like much. However, "I Am a Man, Hear Me Bleat," is a captivating tale in which one of his kids ends up in the emergency room under his care.

The book doesn't completely answer, "What is he thinking?" While each essay addresses the question, there isn't enough diversity in these men's backgrounds. In fact, almost all of them are writers from New York or California. One author stands out because he's in jail.

The book finishes with a bang with "Father of the Year" by Trey Ellis who is black, adding a little diversity (he's a writer, though) talking about fatherhood and his crumbling marriage. If another edition comes out, more diversity in terms of location, experiences, and careers will turn a fine book into a superb one.

If you read Bitch in the House, then you'll most likely enjoy this book. If not, read this book and then read Bitch in the House.

This book is a good weekend read, but I didn't enjoy it as much as it's predecessor. Why Men Lie is the strongest entry in the anthology. And, the volume's weakness does lie with the homogeniety of the contributors. NY is not center of the world!

Besides these pity complaints of mine, Bastard will help give women a glimpse into the pscyhe of the men we love--who sometimes can't do simple tasks! If you read the book- you know what this refers to.

Read and enjoy.

I found "Bastard on the Couch" an engaging collection of viewpoints, some that made me laugh, rage and cry all in one story. It definitely waved things in my face that I had taken for granted in my own relationships with men throughout my life that definitely added a depth to my understanding of those dynamics, even answered some lifelong questions for me. I recommend it with enthusiasm to both women and men. I even read exerpts from it to my husband so many times that he started to say, "Not something ELSE from that Bastard book again...."

This is, of course, the male response to "The Bitch in the House." Here, 27 men write essays on all aspects of relationships with women and some essays just simply trying to explain what makes them tick. Although several of the essays in the women's version were wittily written, I found the essays here more overtly funny, some of them quite funny. And yet these men, like the women, lay it all out there for all to read. In between the giggles and guffaws, I got a heck of a lot of insight into these men (and perhaps, by extension, other men). I'd have to name as my favorite essay "Men in Houses" by Ron Carlson, because it was so wry and sweet. But I enjoyed all the essays, even those by men I'm not sure I'd like to meet.

If you decide to read this and haven't yet read "Bitch in the House," I strongly suggest you read it as well, to keep the world in balance.

OK. I'll admit this review might be unfair. I didn't even finish the book. I might have missed some real gems. But, since I didn't finish it, I thought I should explain why.

I found the essays to be well written but the guys I just couldn't have a lot of empathy for or really understand the point behind many of the essays. The Boy Toy, the guy who was proud of his "threesome" affairs (as a regular fare), the man looking for a "Female John Wayne", the guy whose wife had an affair that he "forgave" her for and then spent 7 years wallowing in the relationship, had an affair of his own and returned to find her in the arms of a woman", these are "typical" guys? Maybe on Jerry Springer.

Not all of the essays were completely bad. The 47 year bachelor had some interesting things to say. The guy with the open marriage was refreshingly honest (even though he didn't use his real name) about the inherent problems with "open" relationship (although I still think he's fooling himself). The essay about the guy who was short-tempered with his children almost actually hit home. But, overall the book is not worth my time to finish.

I am a 45 year old, happily married father of 2. I have been married for 15 years. I had a pretty decent life before marriage and can actually remember those days pretty well. I picked up this book looking for some light reading and maybe some insight as to what makes men tick. I freely admit, I'm not your typical guy. I thought it would interesting and entertaining.

I made it through the first five or six essays. I didn't keep count. Normally, I'll plow through a book no matter how bad it starts off. But, I decided to put this one down last night and probably won't pick it up again. Maybe my wife will read it when Oprah decides to put it on her list. Women would just love to bash men with this one.

This book does a reasonable job of capturing the challenges/views of the guys who are family-oriented despite the distractions of the culture at large.

Where it fails is in capturing the increasing percentage of men who are "dropping out" of family and social life. That is, men who are dropping out of college (60% of men and heading up), men who aren't involved in children's lives, men focused on much-younger women, and married men who spend untold hours watching TV or obsessing over pornography.

One reviewer for the book says it doesn't capture Joe six-pack -- the paradox is that some white collar men are becoming Joe six-pack. Having a college education doesn't translate directly into a family-orientation. The book does capture one 47 year old professional, never married, mildly speculating about the possibility of marriage -- it would have been interesting to capture more of these drop-outs. But it makes sense that a married editor would be hard put to capture the drop-outs -- I can see why they wouldn't travel in the same social circles.

It seems like we've got two extremes with men in this country -- dedicated family men, who can't understand all the fuss, and the increasing number of non-family oriented men.

As marriage and fertility rates go down, and as college attendance for young men plummets, I think family-oriented men have to step up to the plate to look at the increasing number of men who are dropping out of social commitments. To his credit, the author/editor at least mentions these trends in his preface, even if the essays steer clear of these challenges. But women can't resolve these larger social challenges -- only men know what men really want...