The Territory of Men: A Memoir [Paperback]

Joelle Fraser (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 8, 2003

Born into the turmoil of mid-sixties San Francisco, the daughter of a flower child and a surfer, Joelle Fraser grew up with no bedtime, no boundaries, and no father. But “dads” she had in abundance, as her mother worked her way through boyfriends and husbands, caught between the traditional rules of her upbringing and the new freedoms of the “me generation” and women’s lib. Moving every few months, from houseboats and beach shacks to run-down apartments, Joelle came to learn that a woman’s life, free or not, is played out on men’s territory.

Set in northern California, Hawaii, and the small coastal towns of Oregon, Fraser’s engrossing memoir captures this centerless childhood in wonderfully vivid, frank writing, then goes on to show how a legacy like this affects a girl as she grows up. Pretty, blond, precociously aware of her own sexuality, Joelle was drawn to men early, eager to unlock their mysteries. Working in bars, prisons, and firing ranges, she liked to hang out where they congregated. To her the only worlds that counted were men’s worlds. Men held the power; they made life matter.

Fraser’s sharp vignettes of her intense relationships, brief, turbulent marriage, and itinerant life are haunting echoes of her early memories. In The Territory of Men, she brilliantly portrays the way a rootless childhood leads to a restless adulthood, and how a mother’s aimless life serves as a blueprint for her daughter.


From the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

As a child growing up in Northern California and the Pacific Northwest in the late 1960s and '70s, the author watched her mother move between relationships, leaving men before they could leave her, a pattern she acknowledges she later emulated. In her debut book, Fraser, a University of Iowa MFA graduate, looks at her personal history through a periscope, examining her life in terms of her relationships with men, starting and ending with her often absent, alcoholic father. At times moving, occasionally self-indulgent and ultimately uneven, Fraser's narrative covers some 30 years in chronological, vignette-like chapters. She writes poetically about her earliest years, successfully evoking a child's sense of wonder and curiosity about her world. The typical rites of passage she describes later envying other girls' clothing, trying to attract a boyfriend are less interesting and the language more cliched ("I thought of Hawaii, picturing the envy on my classmates' and teachers' faces when I told them the news. I'd leave the wet gloom of Portland, take off on a shiny white plane, and learn to surf and hula dance..."). Not surprisingly, Fraser's substitute fathers her mother's male companions, her own romantic and sexual partners, fellow grad students, men she teaches in prison don't fill the void left by her father. Toward the end, she turns more reflective and offers some fine passages about reconciling her idealized notion of her father (gentle) with the real man ("elusive" and self-destructive). Despite its virtues, Fraser's memoir won't garner favorable comparison to works by writers who have traversed similar territory.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Fraser's childhood was marked both by multiple moves around the West Coast and Hawaii and by the various men who came in and out of her mother's life and, therefore, her own. Her parents separated when she was very young, and although Fraser stayed with her mother, her father remained an important part of her life. Both parents drifted from partner to partner, and both battled alcoholism. Fraser learned to either fit in or disappear when she needed to, both in school and at home. While one of her "fathers" treated her with love and calm affection, another was sexually abusive. And then there were the men Fraser chose, from her respectful high-school boyfriend to the husband she couldn't connect with. Fraser gradually began to see what she had in common with her distant mother and her writer father, even as she recognized their failings. A thoughtful, reflective memoir of a young woman coming of age and navigating the examples her parents have set for her. Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks (July 8, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812968182
• ISBN-13: 978-0812968187
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,319,953 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Memoir without revenge? Is it possible?, October 17, 2002

By 

Allen M. Fish (Berkeley, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Territory of Men: A Memoir (Hardcover)

As a Sausalito native who just missed the 60's, I was eager to read Fraser's take on this little coastal tourist town full of folks a little too offbeat to stay put in nearby San Francisco. From the first page, I was stuck. Fraser's powers of pacing, description, and presence make the vignettes of 30-plus years fly on by. She seems appropriately confident in her ability to craft narrative-based scenarios that deliver years of significance. The best part? No vindictiveness. No self-righteousness. No exhausting self-analysis. Fraser hands us the gift of her paragraphs: forward-moving, heartfelt, and the product of a powerful wordsmith. I am already waiting for her next title.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Territory of Men: A Memoir, August 22, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Territory of Men: A Memoir (Hardcover)

Joelle Fraser has written an honest, poignant account of growing up on the fringes of adult counter-culture in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Though her childhood was different than most, it was still one of exploration and education, of conquering difficulties and facing emotions. Fraser writes well, with a strong sense of people and place as she drifts from northern California to the Oregon coast to Hawaii. Her book will strike a cord in a lot of people: It's a cultural story from a child's point of view, but also spans a life from childhood to adulthood. A great read!!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully crafted; an excellent read, August 22, 2002

By 

M. Thomson (Mill Valley, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Territory of Men: A Memoir (Hardcover)

Joelle Fraser does what few memoir writers do -- share her experiences without too much introspection and "telling" the reader. It is, above all, an excellent read. I found myself in the range of emotion -- laughter, tears, sorrow, anger, healing -- as I read and nodded in agreement. This book will appeal not only to the women (now in our 30s) who grew up through the 60s and early 70s, but also to their mothers and fathers, their husbands and boyfriends (after all, it's important to know what makes these women tick -- they/we're from a generation unlike any other, and shaped by such powerful forces that stereotypes do not apply).

Fraser's detail of scene makes this somewhat voyeuristic book come to vivid life. She's lived in places people dream about -- Northern California, Hawaii, the mist-shrouded Oregon Coast. She's lived a life that many of us lived in various forms; it's dangerous and exciting, yet unpredictable and lacking any dependable structure. It's anything but safe. Yet she comes to a point at the end where the reader understands that she's near a kind of peace with -- of understanding -- of the forces that shaped her mother's and father's lives, and then her own. It is "coming of age" but not in a hokey or too-sentimental fashion.

Many of Territory's professional reviews have dealt with the heavier topics of the book: alcoholism, abuse, a scattered and often neglectful upbringing. Those are the hard truths and provide ample opportunity for discussion (my mother also read Territory of Men and loved it, cried for the little girl Joelle was and the little girl I was, and relived her own past through it), and we had several discussions as she completed some of the essays (notably "Robin's Story"). It's a book that I wish I had a larger group to discuss with -- a book club would be the ideal setting for further exploration of this book's themes. I've recommended it to several friends, male and female, older and younger.

It's a truly excellent read.