US Guys: The True and Twisted Mind of the American Man (Hardcover)

by Charlie LeDuff (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Whether fighting the biggest guy at an Oakland biker club, talking race with a semipro Texas football team or riding shotgun with Detroit homicide, LeDuff's gonzo exploits in this book are nothing short of inspired. The New York Times reporter is a big-game hunter, with plenty of ability to sniff out, ensnare and lovingly stuff and mount his subjects. Less an analytic discourse than an "American travelogue," the book searches out "the angry forgotten middling America"—rendering a complex array of American wildlife, from gay rodeo star wannabes to Little Big Horn re-enactors. Though LeDuff's writing often comes off as aggressive and unfiltered, there are many moments when it feels self-consciously stylized, eclipsing an otherwise keen eye for detail. Authenticity surfaces in astute observations ("self-expression is dangerous when too much expression is mixed with too little sense of self"). But LeDuff's quest for edginess sometimes overwhelms his insights, through overuse of words like "cheap" ("cheap booze," "cheap-looking girl," "cheap chromium tanning salons"). His pronouncements on American life (e.g., "meaning is invented in America through new sink faucets and car waxes and aluminum siding in pastel colors") can also miss the mark. Like the hard-luck stories he chronicles, the book is angry, touching, entertaining and flawed—a prologue, one hopes, to greater things down the road. (Feb. 5)
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Review
...LeDuff's a fearless, clear-eyed companion into parts of America that rarely see print. When he's on, his sentences are unbeatable. A- -- Entertainment Weekly, February 2, 2007

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The (February 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594201064
• ISBN-13: 978-1594201066
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #600,026 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Grim Tone of Male Misfits, February 6, 2007

By	M. JEFFREY MCMAHON "herculodge" (Torrance, CA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Each chapter of this book presents a well-detailed, separate profile of a down-and-out male misfit who, struggling, with his sense of belonging or lack thereof, resorts to booze, other addictions, long-winded story-telling, eccentric indulgences, or some extreme macho pursuit or other. LeDuff is a capable writer and an excellent stylist, but his thesis, that the diverse range of contradictory male impulses defy conventional masculine images, is a bit broad and heavy-handed. With a tone that is grim, earnest and too often rich in sanctimony, LeDuff seems to be lecturing us, PBS style, on the "struggles and issues" of working class men. LeDuff is intent on championing his populist cause, so much so that early in the book he criticizes (without naming him) Thomas Friedman for dismissing the working class by arguing that Americans have lost their competitive edge. He'll be damned if he'll let Friedman take such a cheap pot shot and he's going to give sympathetic portraits of gritty working class men and defend them from Friedman's screed. The result is an overly serious, humorless, and in the end somewhat politically boxed-in book. To be fair, I was expecting some more humor, more irony, more playfulness. But I suppose the author felt it necessary to keep everything somber and deadly serious. Too bad because LeDuff is strong talent, he has experienced much around the world, traveling to Iraq for example, and he surely has a lot to say.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars SOME of "US Guys", August 19, 2007

By	Danton McDiffett (Kansas USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I'm sure if LeDuff felt that some white collar writer were lumping all the men of his generation into some group, he'd rant and rave against such stereotyping. But he's eager to do the same, throwing out sweeping generalizations about the men of his generation (once called "X" now called nothing in particular, he asserts). To draw on his experiences at Nevada's Burning Man festival and say his generation "meanders through life without purpose, charting with a broken compass" sounds nice and deep, but in all honesty, are the people who trek into the Nevada desert (or join the gay rodeo circuit, fight-club motorcycle clubs, or bottom-rung football teams) truly the standard-bearers of an entire generation?
Sure, LeDuff, go ahead and write about the down-and-outers, but don't lump everyone else born in the same couple of decades into your groups of directionless losers. Your stories are an interesting look at a small group of disaffected American men, not all of us, so jump down off your high horse of judgement and recognize the limits of your choice of experiences.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars grin and grimace, February 8, 2007

By	Richard Cumming "richo" (blue state) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

LeDuff is a brilliant writer. He takes his film crew to the dark underside of the American Male Experience. It's not pretty but his observations are by turns shocking, astonishing, revolting, inspiring, stupefying, and often, very amusing. (*note-sense of humor on part of reader is most helpful.)

He exposes the empty hype of the Burning Man Festival in Nevada. He dons the gonzo biker persona to rumble with the Rats. He annoys a former junkie turned evangelist. He gets pounded into the ground as a rodeo bull rider, arena football player, and circus clown cum trapeze artist.

All along the dangerous road he maintains his tough guy pose except when he's weeping. LeDuff has all the tools. This book will blow your mind.